
& 




^^ 



^e_ 









JL 



TO THE 

SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 

IN ROCKVILLE: 

AND 

OTHER CHURCHES TO WHOM THE 

LATE PASTOR 

HAS MINISTERED IN THE LORD : 

AND TO HIS 

LARGE CIRCLE OF PERSONAL FRIENDS, 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 



NOTE. 

In gathering and arranging these " Reminiscences," I have taken an 
affectionate interest. The work has seemed to prolong the companion- 
ship, the value of which I was beginning to learn in its loss. It has 
been pleasant to call around me the good man's thoughts, and to find 
in the communion, a new zest of the friendship. 

Precisely a year is now completed since the death : and if it seems 
a late day for the memorial offering to be made, an absence of four 
months from my field of labor, and uncommon pressure of home work 
the other months of the year, may be a sufficient explanation. 

Mr. Hyde's sermons will long be remembered by those who heard 
them. It is to gratify such that a few have been selected for a place 
among the " Reminiscences." 

May the blessing of the Master he served go with them and make 
them still further useful ; while by keeping alive the associations, they 
may serve, in a sense, to keep the Pastor still present with us. 

J. W. BACKUS, 
Rockville, May 28, 1881. 



REMINISCENCES 



OF THE LATE 



Rev, HENRY F, HYDE 



PASTOR SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 



Rockvill'e, Conn. 



HARTFORD, CONN.: 

PRESS OF THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY. 

* 1881. 









\ 



I 



%\ 




'■' 



OCT 30 m 




CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

FUNERAL SERVICES. 

TAGS. 

1. The Gathering, --_-_* g 

2. Chant—" Lead Kindly Light," .... 9 

3. Hymn, ..-___. IO 

4. Reading the Scriptures, - - -' - 10 

5. Remarks by Rev. Francis Williams, Chaplain, - - 11 

6. Remarks by Rev. G. I. Wood, Ellington, - - - 16 

7. Remarks by Rev. Prof. Thompson, Theo. Sem., Hartford, - 17 

8. Remarks by Rev. J. W. Backus, Rockville, - - 19 

9. Prayer, ------- 2 o 

10. Singing — Hymn, - - - - - - 20 

11. Burial, ------- 2 i 



PART II. 

TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 



PAGE 



i. Rev. Samuel E. Herrick, D.D., Boston, Mass., - - 25 

2. Judge R. B. Archibald, Jacksonville, Fla., - - - 27 

3. E. L. G., Jacksonville, Fla., ----- 28 

4. Mr. Wayland Spaulding, Mont Clair, N. J., - - - 29 

5. Mr. T. D. Goodell, Hartford, - - - - 31 

6. Last Hours, - - - - - - -31 

7. Rev. J. W. Backus — Memorial Discourse, preached in 

Methodist Church, union service, June 20, 1880, - - 34 



VIII CONTENTS. 



PART III. 

SERMONS 



PAGE. 

Elements of Christianity, * - - - 51 

(Preached, Pomfret, Aug. 6, 1871.) 
II. 

The Son of Man : or Christ's Humanity, in its Relation 

TO US, - - - - - - 65 

(Preached, Rockville, Aug. 23, 1874.) 

III. 

The Lord's PrAyer, ------ j8 

(Preached, Rockville, June 2, 1878.) 

IV. 

Christ's Estimate of the Worth of a Man, - - 89 

(Preached, Rockville, Union Service, Nov. 16, 1879.) 

V. 

SlNGLE-MlNDEDNESS IN RELIGION, - - - 101 

(Preached, Rockville, Jan. 18, 1880.) 

VI. 

Christ's Call to the Unconverted, - - 113 

(Preached, Rockville, Union Service, Feb. 15, 1880.) 

VII. 
Easter Thoughts, - - - - - 126 

(Preached, Rockville, March 28, 1880.) 



FUNERAL SERVICES. 



THE GATHERING. 



The 31st day of May, 1880, was a day of universal sorrow 
in Rockville. As the hour of the funeral solemnities ap- 
proached, there was a stir in all the streets. Slowly and 
sadly the gathering multitudes found their way into the 
church, till all its available space was occupied. A short 
introductory prayer at the house, and the coffin was taken 
by the six Deacons, and tenderly borne to the front of the 
Pulpit, where it was awaited by the large assembly. And 
even before this, while the casket was moving up the aisle, 
and as if it gave out the words itself, the choir took up the 
rendering in the following Chant and Hymn : 



CHANT. 

Lead kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, lead thou me on ! 
The night is dark, and I am far from home ; lead thou me on ! 
Keep thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step's enough for me. 

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou should'st lead me on ; 
I loved to choose and see my path ; but now lead thou me on ! 
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears 
Pride ruled my will : remember not past years ! 

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone, 
And with the morn those Angel faces smile, 
Which I have loved long- since and lost awhile. 



HYMN. 

When I survey the wondrous cross, 
On which the Prince of glory died, 

My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride. 

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 
Save in the death of Christ, my God ; 

AH the vain things that charm me most, 
I sacrifice them to his blood. 

See, from his head, his hands, his feet, 
Sorrow and love flow mingled down : 

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? 

Were all the realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 

Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all. 



READING OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
By Rev. R. Povey. 

Acts XX : 17-38. — And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called 
the elders of the church. 

And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from 
the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with 
you at all seasons, 

Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and 
temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews : 

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have 
shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, 

Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance to- 
ward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not know- 
ing the things that shall befall me there : 

Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds 
and afflictions abide me. 



But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto 
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, 
which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the 
grace of God. 

And now, behold, 1 know that ye all, among whom I have gone preach- 
ing the kingdom oi God, shall see my face no more. 

Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the 
blood of all men. 

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. 

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the 
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of 
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter 
in among you, not sparing the flock. 

Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to 
draw away disciples after them. 

Therefore watch, and remember, that .by the space of three years I 
ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 

And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his 
grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance 
among all them which are sanctified. 

I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. 

Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my 
necessities, and to them that were with me. 

I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to sup- 
port the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 

And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with 
them all. 

And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him. 

Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should 
see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship. 



ADDRESS. 

By Rev. Francis Williams, Chaplin. 

Our deceased friend I have long esteemed and loved. He 
was a native of Killingly, in the county in which almost all 
my ministerial life has been spent. Here, also, in his native 
county, he passed two pastorates, bringing me into most inti- 



12 

mate and various relations with him. I may therefore speak 
the more freely and confidently on this funeral occasion. I 
knew him while a member of the Theological Institute of 
Connecticut, and knew of the high hopes entertained of his 
future prominence and success in his chosen life-work. I 
saw him under the examination of the Visiting Board, and 
recognized that clearness and accuracy of thought and rea- 
soning by which he was characterized. 

As a member of the Council in West Woodstock, by which 
he was ordained and installed, I heard him give his experi- 
ence of the love and grace of God, his call to the work of the 
ministry, and saw his ability to state and defend his theologi- 
cal views and belief. His expositions of divine truth exhibited 
the Bible as his supreme authority, in all that pertained to his 
belief and modes of labor. Of his soundness in the faith 
there could be no doubt. He loved souls for whom Christ 
died, and felt that his work was to seek their salvation. To 
win lost men to the Saviour, and furnish them with the truth 
through which they were to be sanctified, was his supreme 
object. 

I think I have never seen a student, fresh from the semi- 
nary, who sustained a better examination, and to whom his 
brethren gave a more cordial right-hand of fellowship, than 
to our good brother Hyde. Rev. Dr. Vermilye of the Hart- 
ford Theological Seminary, preached the sermon. He has 
gone before him, leaving a saintly memory, and I have no 
doubt they have already met in that world of blessedness for 
which they were preparing others. 

His brief ministry among his people at West Woodstock, 
was successful ; he was highly appreciated and loved, and 
would have continued could his attached people have retained 
him. As might have been expected, it was not long before 
a stronger parish sought his labors, and called him to be their 
pastor and teacher. He felt that the Lord called him to ac- 
cept their invitation, and become pastor of the old and hon- 
ored church in Pomfret. As a member of the installing 
council I saw that he was a growing man and Christian, 
ripening in those excellences which make a good friend and 



pastor. Able and prompt in all duties assigned him in our 
county-meetings, his reputation widened and strengthened in 
our ministerial circle, and among our churches. He was one 
of our best preachers, genial also in our association with him. 
Never dictatorial, non-assuming, he won our love. 

We knew him, not only as a careful reader of the best 
works in theology, but as a critic of excellent taste in all the 
literature with which our profession needs to be familiar and 
accurate. In the higher order of literature, he was an exten- 
sive and appreciative reader. The Windham County Trans- 
cript, the local paper of his native town, received many 
contributions from his pen, and his excellent review of books 
and periodicals as they came from the press was a source of 
much pleasure and profit to the readers of that able county 
paper. 

When this church in Rockville called him to the pastorate, 
there was much regret at the prospect of our loss, with the 
assurance that you would obtain a strong, good man, if you 
secured him. His people held him strongly and would 
have retained him, but his own convictions of duty led him 
to think God called him to this new field of labor, and we 
felt, however great our loss, the will of God be done. We 
knew he was well fitted to sustain himself in this important 
and enlarged field of labor, and to be largely useful among 
you. Of his labors here I need not speak ; the many expres- 
sions of your love to him and his bereaved family ; this large 
audience assembled, show most plainly that you feel a heavy 
loss as you realize that his labors with you are ended. But 
his loss is deeply felt beyond the parish-lines where his 
labor was mostly expended. In our State Associations and 
Conferences he was becoming known and appreciated. Had 
his life been spared, we feel that he would have risen higher 
and higher in public estimation and honor. 

A few years since he was elected a member of the Board 
of Trustees in the Theological Seminary from which he 
graduated. Associated with him in this body, it was easy to 
perceive that he was an important acquisition to the trust. 
What such an institution should accomplish, and what were 



H 

the best methods of securing the end designed were well 
mapped out in his mind. 

This very year he was appointed one of the Board of Vis- 
itors at the Anniversary, but when we met, he was not pres- 
ent, and we learned that illness detained him. He was also 
to give the annual address before the Alumni of the institu- 
tion, and we found the man always prompt to fulfil his 
appointments, was necessarily absent. How little we thought 
then, that we had met him for the last time in that institution 
of sacred learning. But the Master, who never mistakes, 
soon called our dear Brother to come up higher. He heard 
the call, bowed in sweet submission to the divine will, com- 
mitted his family and people, all he held dear upon earth, to 
the care of the blessed Master, and girded himself to pass 
over Jordan, to enter the Canaan of rest. 

You have lost an excellent preacher from your pulpit ; a 
valued pastor from your congregation ; an excellent citizen 
from your community. When you bear the precious remains 
of our dear Brother to your pleasant Cemetery, and when, 
again and again you visit that hallowed resting place, and 
mark the spot where your loved pastor sleeps, remember the 
words he spake while he was with you, and that he being 
dead yet speaketh. 

As almost a life -long friend of the family, now so deeply 
bereaved, let me say : you have the deepest sympathy of this 
great assembly, and of your many friends, here and elsewhere. 
His large Bible class, whom he so faithfully instructed, may 
well sit as mourners, and tenderly drop the flowers of sweet 
remembrance into yon hallowed grave. 

You have lost a most tender and devoted husband ; a 
father whose heart and prayers went up for the kind care and 
protection of the Heavenly Father ; a son, who in filial duty 
and love sought your best welfare ; a brother, of whom you 
had every reason to know that a heart is now stilled, which 
ever beat with true fraternal love. We commend this be- 
reaved widow, these orphaned children, this widowed mother, 
these brothers and sisters, to the care of one who careth for 
you. We commend this church and congregation to the 



15 

keeping of the Good Shepherd. His place among you is 
vacant ; think not of him as sleeping in the silent grave, but 
as a glorified spirit in the presence of the dear Lord and Sa- 
viour. For him to live was Christ, and to die gain. He 
has doubtless seen the king in his beauty ; has heard the 
" Well done ; " has joined the song of the redeemed ; has met 
sainted associates in the ministry ; parishioners whom he 
followed to the silent resting-place ; souls saved under his 
ministry ; and the little son, who passed on before him. * His 
joy is full. Let your sorrow be in quiet submission to the 
dear Lord who has taken your loved one, and who doeth all 
things well. 

When the Martyr, Nathan Hale, perished amid cruelties 
and heartlessness which no civilized nation should suffer in her 
armies, it is said his father arose in the prayer-meeting, while 
all was hushed to stillness at the news of the heavy tidings, 
and said, " You will not expect me this evening to say much, 
you have all heard of my terrible bereavement, and of the 
distressing circumstances attending the death of my son. 
But this I will say; the time when, the place where, and the 
manner how our friends are called from us is of very little 
consequence, all is just as our Heavenly Father appoints, and 
all is well, His will be done." Such sweet submission is 
beautiful, scriptural, and truly consoling to the bereaved, and 
it must be highly pleasing to our H eavenly Father. God never 
makes a mistake, never does what he afterwards regrets. 
When he has seen all your tears, your loneliness, your sense 
of loss, he would do the same thing over again. He says to 
you, " All is best. Trust me." But for your comfort, he ten- 
derly says to you, "All things work together for good to 
them that love God." " For your light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for yoic a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." He does not willingly afflict nor 
grieve his children ; as a tender father he pities ; pities all who 
fear him. Only trust him and all shall be well. 



\6 

ADDRESS. 
Rev. G. I. Wood, Ellington. 

The deep and unaffected grief, so evident on the face of 
this entire assembly, composed not only of the members of 
the various denominations in Rockville, but of so many of the 
ministers and representatives of the churches of this county ; 
the unbought love and sympathy of this great multitude of 
children filling this entire gallery ; the unbidden tears which 
drop upon and around this precious casket, — these are the 
decorations which we bring to-day, to lay on the grave of this 
good and faithful soldier of Jesus Christ.* 

Our deepest and most sacred emotions are those which can- 
not be expressed in words. The stillness, the silence, of this 
assembly, is so much more expressive than any words which 
I can employ, that I hardly feel willing to break this silence 
by adding anything to what has already been said. 

I may say, however, that the speaker who preceded me 
was guilty of no presumption when he said that he thought 
he might assure this bereaved and afflicted church of the 
deep and wide-spread sympathy of all the churches and the 
ministers of this vicinity. The sacred and peculiar grief of 
this bereaved family, now without husband or father, is some- 
thing to which it is beyond our power to minister consolation. 
We need not and we shall not try to do this. Our Lord and 
Master, we are very confident, will give them all needed com- 
fort and support in this dark and trying hour. 

There is one thing about our departed brother, and only 
one, of which I will venture to speak. There was in his 
character a remarkable combination and harmony of two very 
diverse elements which are often considered antagonistic, and 
which are rarely harmonized so completely in one person ; 
and it is this which made him so good a soldier of the 
cross. He was a man of courage and strength — never afraid 
to utter his honest convictions — and yet he was of a gentle 
and tender spirit. He had much of the charity of the gospel, 

* The funeral was held on Decoration Day. 



17 

while he was not lacking in any of the elements of masculine 
power. 

It requires but little aid from the imagination, to hear from 
out of the invisible world around us, the voice of the Great 
Captain of our salvation, as he looks down upon the cold and 
silent form enshrined in this casket, saying, " Well done, 
good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 



ADDRESS. 
Dr. Wm. Thompson, Hartford Theological Seminary. 

On entering our seminary in the fall of 1861, Mr. Hyde 
became a class-mate of my son William A. They soon 
found themselves warm friends. Harmonious views, tastes, 
and purposes gave to their student-life a charm never to be 
forgotten. The same unselfish motives inspired each in the 
good work of the ministry. Both labored under the disad- 
vantage of precarious health. Both fell in the midst of pas- 
toral labors, leaving untarnished names and sorrowful flocks 
mourning the loss of faithful and devoted guides. Of the 
two, Mr. Hyde's ministry was the longest by five years. 

" 'Tis sweet as year by year we lose 
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
How grows in Paradise our store." 

Mr. Hyde's characteristics, when a student at East Wind- 
sor, made a happy impression on his teachers and associates. 
Without conceit or forwardness, he thought for himself and 
called no man master. No one excelled him as an example 
of patient, earnest application to the prescribed course of 
study. He lost no time in day-dreams and frivolous conver- 
sation. While eager for knowledge, he never forgot that the 
aspirant for the gospel ministry should be in his governing 
purpose, his spirit and manner of life, a man of God. The 
cultivation of Christian graces seemed to him no less essen- 
tial than other prerequisites for a bishop. Failure here would 
3 



i8 

have made all other accomplishments no better than sounding 
brass and a tinkling cymbal. 

The social, intellectual, and spiritual qualities that marked 
Mr. Hyde's seminary life were sure to win the confidence, 
affection, and respect so widely accorded him in after years. 
I never had the pleasure of hearing him preach, and seldom 
met him till he was settled in Rockville, but from time to 
time I heard, through competent witnesses, that he was covet- 
ous of the best gifts and stood in the front rank of the rising 
ministry. For eight years our board of seminary trustees 
was fortunate in having him as a colleague. His quick per- 
ception, self-control, sound judgment, and genial temper fitted 
him to act wisely and efficiently in administering a public 
trust. When Dr. Vermilye's health became seriously im- 
paired and a temporary assistant in the theological department 
was needed, Mr. Hyde's services were solicited, and proved 
quite satisfactory. The arrangement illustrated the liberality 
of the Second Church in Rockville, and the self-sacrificing 
spirit of their pastor, who cheerfully assumed a heavy burden 
in addition to the ordinary labors of a large parish. 

When public sentiment in our churches shall demand that 
committees of supply look for candidates corresponding to 
the models set forth in the Pastoral Epistles, such ministers 
as Mr. Hyde will be welcomed to influential pulpits, rather 
than men of unsettled views, equipped with "the wisdom of 
words," and who " can play well on an instrument." Of Mr. 
Hyde, and such as he, one is reminded when reading Paul's 
description of an approved Elder, who is " apt to teach," not 
" self willed," " not soon angry," " not given to wine," " not 
given to filthy lucre," but " sober, just, holy, temperate," 
" holding fast the faithful word." 

The Lord of the harvest multiply such laborers a thousand 
fold! 



i 9 

ADDRESS. 
Rev. J. W. B., Rockville. 

Rev. Mr. Backus, having read extracts from Mr. Hyde's 
last Easter sermon, preached March 28, the last he preached 
to his own people, remarked substantially as follows: — 
This seems prophetic. These thoughts gathered round him 
then, as these flowers do now. They seem animated by the 
music of heaven. Since then, eight weeks have passed, in 
the retirement of the sick room. They have been weeks 
of suffering and anxiety, but nothing has thrown him from 
his natural poise and self-possession in God. He has read 
the papers, as usual, and conversed upon the news of the 
day, the political conventions, the Whittaker trial, the famine 
in Ireland, the new British Ministry, Lord Beaconsfield and 
Mr. Gladstone. He has talked Theology, noting especially 
the particular doctrines of New England Theology that have 
had special emphasis at particular times during the past 
century. In the literary world he has talked of the American 
Book Exchange, the " Standard Series," the books published by 
them, canvassed the merits and demerits of their mechanical 
execution, noticed the popular benefits that might be expected 
of them. He looked at a new book, as he would a new- 
blown flower. His good-natured humor did not forsake him. 
His labored efforts at walking, he would characterize as a bad 
"walk and conversation." A new development of his dis- 
ease, he would call a new evidence of depravity. But he did 
not for a moment forget that the Lord's hand was upon him. 
" Is it not strange," he would ask, " that we need so much 
trial in order to make anything of us ? " " I never saw the 
value of trial so clearly before." He thought it would make 
a better minister of him. This was the extent of his ambi- 
tion, to be a better minister. His mind was constantly at 
work upon sermon thoughts and pastoral methods. Referring 
one morning to his wakeful night, he said, " I wrote two ser- 
mons last night and an article for the newspaper." 

Last Tuesday morning, the step of the death messenger was 



20 

in the house, and a seraph was there also touching his lips with 
new speech. Hope revived, however, and friends sung to 
him, " Rock of Ages," " My faith looks up to Thee," " Jesus, 
lover of my soul." This was the anointing for his burial. 
Thursday morning it was evident he was near his end. His 
will was made. Being read to him for correction, he noted this 
mistake: "I give myself to my Lord and Saviour;" "No," 
said he, " not I give, but I have given. I did it long ago." 
He gave his dying charge and blessing to his children, 
thought he should know Ernest, the babe in heaven, bore 
witness that his " sickness had been worth all that it had 
cost," and went out to meet the Bridegroom. 



PRAYER.— Br Rev. J. W. Backus. 



HYMN. 

Over the crystal river 

We meet to part, no, never ; 
Where tears are dried forever, 
Where friendship ne'er will sever. 
Oh, Paradise ! Oh, Paradise ! 
We long for thee. Oh, Paradise. 

Angels are ever watching 

O'er friends that dwell below ; 
They hover round our pathway, 
God's love to us they show. 

Oh, Paradise! Oh, Paradise! 
We long for thee, Oh, Paradise. 

Mourn not for lov'd ones gone, 

For they have reached the shore : 
They've only gone before, 
To open wide the door. 

Oh, Paradise ! Oh, Paradise ! 
We long for thee, Oh, Paradise. 



21 



THE BURIAL. 



The long procession moved. And though the hush of 
other life seemed the more perceptible, yet the crowd of 
" Easter thoughts" by the way, bore down upon us irresist- 
ably, and gave us courage for the burial. At the grave, one 
could easily imagine the May birds had found the resur- 
rection thought, and were chanting it, in their own sweet 
way. The coffin was lowered to its resting place, and buried 
in flowers. What could be expected at that instant, but the 
soft outbreak of tremulous song : 

" Asleep in Jesus — blessed sleep." 

A few fitting words were added, by Rev. A. R. Nichols, of 
Springfield, Mass., classmate of the deceased, and the service 
was closed with the benediction. 



PART II 



TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 



Letter from Rev. S. E. Herrick, D.D. 

Boston, February i, 1881. 
My Dear Mrs. Hyde : 

Permit me to put in the form of a letter to you what I 
would like to say concerning your husband : 

My acquaintance with Mr. Hyde dates back to the year 
1856, when we were boys together in the sophomore class at 
Amherst. Owing to several causes, that acquaintance ripened 
into great intimacy. Our names standing side by side upon 
the prayer-bill, we occupied adjacent seats at daily prayers, 
in chapel on the Sabbath, and several times every day in the 
class-room. Not unfrequently we recited from the same 
book. His far superior scholarship has, how often, stood 
me in good stead and prevented me from disgraceful failure 
by such timely hints as school-boys know how to give one 
another. I owe him much more in many ways than this 
letter will be able to tell. For some part of our course our 
rooms were adjacent, and the long talks on all sorts of 
subjects, often prolonged far into the night, and sometimes 
resumed before we were up in the morning, through the thin 
lath-and-plaster walls of East College, are remembered still 
by me as not least among the healthful educating influences 
of college days at Amherst. I was so much younger than 
he, and he was so much stronger than I, that his influence 
was formative. I owe to him almost entirely a love for 
literature, which he inspired and taught me how to feed in a 
healthful way, which has been an increasing delight and 
comfort to me through all these years. I do not think it any 
disparagement to our teachers to say that I then thought, 

4 



26 

and still think, that there was no one among them who was 
so competent to fill the chair of Belles Lettres and English 
Literature, as Mr. Hyde was, at any time in his college 
course. His reading had been very extensive, and his knowl- 
edge was exact, his memory retentive, his literary judgment 
generally unerring. He had the literary instinct. He had 
that rare gift of discerning almost intuitively the good and 
the evil without a sifting examination. You might have led 
him into the most promiscuous library and he would have 
lighted upon the good in it, with the precision of a bee upon 
a honey-laden blossom in a field of weeds. His taste was 
sensitive and pure. I think in those days, though he read 
very broadly, his favorites were Charles Lamb and Prof. 
Wilson among the lighter essayists, Tennyson and Mrs. 
Barrett-Browning among the poets, and Jeremy Taylor of 
religious writers. History of all writers he loved without 
much partiality. Having the power of historic imagination 
to a large degree, he only needed to get the facts ; he could 
put in the garb and scenery, the coloring and atmosphere for 
himself. 

Had he chosen to give himself up to literature as a profes- 
sion, he might have been better known to the world. Multi- 
tudes yield to its attractions who have not a tithe of his 
adaptations for such a career. But to that " High Calling of 
God" which he heard in the earliest days of his Christian 
life he was stedfastly loyal. He never thought for a moment 
of the laurel crown, which those who knew him best saw to 
be easily within his reach. 

Others will speak of him as a Minister better than I can. 
I have met him but seldom since we separated for our life- 
work. But the pleasant memories of his guilelessness, his 
good humor, his clean and refreshing fun, his keen, whole- 
some, never ill-tempered criticism, and, above all, his fidelity 
to truth and his loyalty to Christ will abide with me as a life- 
long blessing — a joy forever. 

Yours with tenderest sympathy, 

SAMUEL E. HERRICK. 



Letter from Judge R. B. Archibald, Jacksonville, 

Florida. 
Dear Mrs. Hyde : 

My admira f ion for Mr. Hyde, and the great obligation I 
feel, and shall always feel, for inestimable services rendered 
me by him, demand of me a word of affectionate testimony 
for the memorial volume. 

His arrival about five years ago in Jacksonville, to assume 
the duties of Pastor of the Congregational Church, was quite 
an event to the little community who had organized that 
church society. Mr. Hyde was their first minister, and none 
of them had ever seen him. So the interest was great 
to know how he would look, how he would preach, and how 
he would talk. The impression received when I first met 
him has, in the main, continued with me ever since. I found 
him frank, manly, and outspoken ; and yet with such pru- 
dence and unaffected kindness of manner as never to offend. 
Candor, kindness, and good humor seemed to be largely de- 
veloped in his nature, and I think this impressed every one 
who knew him. One thing particularly struck me, and that 
was the utter absence of everything like cant. Unless the 
subject of religion happened naturally to come up in the 
course of a conversation, or came in the line of duty, a stranger 
might converse for hours with him on politics, literature, or 
other subjects, and never suspect him to be a minister, but 
would go away with the idea that he was a very intelligent, 
cultured, and well-read gentleman. When, however, religious 
questions did arise, or were introduced, Mr. Hyde could 
handle them with such skill and learning as to convince any- 
one that he had not mistaken his calling. He must have 
been a great reader, I may say an extraordinary reader, and 
there seemed to be no limit to the variety of subjects he 
studied. Turn the conversation in any direction one might 
choose he could accompany you with perfect ease, and pre- 
sent new and fresh thoughts all the way along. 

His ready wit and unfailing good humor rendered him 
exceedingly agreeable. He was ever ready to add to the 
pleasure or amusement of those about him, and if occasion 



permitted, would enliven the conversation with the raciest 
and yet the most harmless jests. And how often would his 
bright, intelligent, blue eyes light up and sparkle in apprecia- 
tion of the wit of others. 

His patience and rare good nature were remarkable, often 
under very trying circumstances. While at our house, you 
will remember how ill he was with rheumatic fever. During 
this illness he suffered a good deal, and sometimes very in- 
tensely. Yet never did we hear an impatient word or see a 
discouraging look. All the suffering was borne with what 
might be termed heroic cheerfulness. When the pain was 
not wholly unbearable he would joke about his aches and 
pains in the drollest manner possible, and get us all laughing, 
notwithstanding our great sympathy for him. 

He was here but a few months, and we know compara- 
tively little of his life ; but what we do know, and what we 
have seen of him, will be among the pleasantest and tenderest 
memories of our lives. Hoping and trusting that God, whose 
true and faithful minister he was, will in His own good time, 
bring us all together again, 

I remain with sincere regard, 

Your friend, 

R. B. ARCHIBALD. 



From a Friend, E. L. G., in Jacksonville, Florida. 

I never heard him preach that I did not feel that I had 
been " fed with the finest of the wheat." His thoughts were 
so clearly defined in his own mind, that we were never left in 
doubt as to his real meaning. He " used great plainness of 
speech," but in all evincing remarkable tenderness and deli- 
cacy of feeling. I was impressed with this characteristic of 
his preaching the last time I heard him (Sabbath evening, 
Nov. 20, 1879) address his own people from the words, "If 



2 9 

we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in dark- 
ness, we lie." 

" His lips were love, his touch was power ; 
His thoughts were livid flame." 

I have often recalled that ever-to-be-remembered Sabbath 
evening, and have seen before me that slender, earnest man 
again and again, as, filled with his Master's spirit, his very 
countenance seemed to say, " None of these things move me, 
neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might 
finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have 
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the 
grace of God." 



From Mr. Wayland Spaulding, Mont Clair, N. J. 

Whenever we met, whether on the street, in his study, 
or at my house, a discussion generally arose of itself 
and often refused to abate until all reasonable hours were 
past. These talks frequently turned upon books. His 
critical appreciation was remarkable. He first made for 
himself a clear picture of an author's mind. Then all his 
works were reviewed as coming from this source, like water 
from a spring. I could never raise questions faster than he 
could answer them. In close argument he was a perfect 
Knight. Yet his shaft was like Sir Lancelot's — one felt a 
certain pleasure in being thrown with the grace of complete 
strength^ His only expression of triumph was a hearty 
laugh ; but then he gave the same laugh when he chanced 
to be mistaken. He impressed me as a man pouring a 
stream of fresh thought over his mind. What was good, 
stayed ; the rest flowed away. He told me that he loved to 
drop into the middle of a magazine article and browse him- 
self out in either direction, — a practice dangerous to a mind 
less clear and powerful. 

In conversation he would sometimes cry out, " But what's 
the use talking about that ? It isn't true." He was attracted 



30 

one evening by some of the high-school scholars talking 
about an English author's literary style. " Why," said he, 
"that's grand. Not one in a thousand knows what 'style' 
means." 

But all this is passed by when we consider his spiritual life. 
After his last visit to the South, it seemed to me that his 
sermons were better than ever. To the old depth and vigor 
he added a stronger spiritual element. Neither doctrine nor 
science made him forget to urge the claims of holy living. 
Many a night, after prayer-meeting, we walked back and forth 
between our houses together. In these walks the young 
people of our town were often talked over with an earnest 
desire to reach and help them. I think the habit grew upon 
us who attended the meetings, of waiting to shake hands after 
the service was over. 

During all his years at Rockville his people were steadily 
closing around him and rallying to his support. Those who 
found him out, especially, became his warm friends. His 
church in its quickened life is the noblest witness to his 
power as a pastor. On all questions of social reform he was 
eminently sound and active. He stated Christian truth so 
plainly that we could not mistake. All the wealth of his 
mind and heart was freely spent in making us feel the value 
of personal religion. He called on us to follow where he led 
the way. 

I visited him at Rockville a few weeks before he died. It 
was Easter Sunday, and he preached the last sermon he ever 
wrote. It was just like him — clear, vivid, glowing. Two 
months later came the news of his death. Rockville mourned 
sincerely for the man who had given her his best work. There 
were no distinctions. Those were in sorrow who were his 
friends, and that included the whole community. We re- 
member him as a good citizen and a man of fine literary taste. 
But the strongest influence remaining to us is that which 
rose from the words and life of a whole-souled Christian. 



3i 
From T. D. Goodell, Hartford. 

One phase of Mr. Hyde's relation to me — and to many 
others — has recurred to my thoughts very often since I saw 
him last. Notwithstanding the sweetness and strength of 
his character in other respects, I think of him chiefly as the 
source of a quiet but powerful and pervasive intellectual 
influence of a very rare kind. In all his sermons a distinctive 
feature was the ever-springing freshness of his thought ; his 
fine and constantly growing library diffused its benefits freely 
among all who cared for them ; in conversation, though we 
sometimes differed widely, he seldom failed to leave with me 
some important suggestion, that would not away till it had 
been met and carefully considered. Perhaps this influence 
of his was more especially noticeable in a few of us young 
men, as we were just beginning to reach out into that intel- 
lectual world in which he was so thoroughly at home ; yet I 
know that very many of his friends felt the same stimulus 
from him continually. He raised the plane of thinking, 
especially on religious subjects, among his people ; and only 
the unworldly character of his ambition prevented him from 
becoming widely known. 



LAST HOURS. 



Tuesday morning, May 25th, he was much worse. In the 
afternoon, after a council of physicians, both he and those 
watching over him were, for a little time, very hopeful of his 
recovery. But Wednesday morning it was evident that the 
disease, rheumatism of the stomach, was not yielding at all, 
and by the evening of that day hope had almost gone out. 

Death had come. Friends and physicians were powerless 
to resist ; but the conqueror of death was present. When in 
health, he had often been oppressed, as he thought of the 



32 

mystery and silence of death, but Christ was with him to 
illuminate the way, and more than once he said " There is no 
mystery now." To a friend who sat by him Wednesday 
afternoon, he said, " Such an insight as I have had into the 
future!" 

Early Thursday morning, during a hard thunder- shower, 
after a very heavy peal, he said, " Our Father s voice!' No 
words can tell the sense of nearness to God expressed in his 
tones as he uttered the words, Our Father's voice. A few 
hours after, as he saw through one of the windows of his 
room a bit of the beautiful clear sky, and the evergreen hedge 
with rain-drops sparkling in the sunlight, he asked, " Am I 
in Heaven or on earth ? " When told that he was on earth he 
replied, " It is beautiful enough to be a part of Heaven." 
Always in life keenly alive to the beautiful, in death he was 
the same. 

To his brother minister who came in to pray with him, he 
said, " I have no ecstasy, but such peace." To his wife he 
spoke of the happiness of their life together, and said, " You 
will be taken care of ; you will have friends." 

No one of his family or household was forgotten by him, 
and those who took care of him were spoken to with the 
kindest interest in their spiritual welfare. 

He exhorted his son to be a whole-hearted Christian, and 
to be a son on whom his mother could depend. His daugh- 
ters Clara and Margaret he urged to give themselves to 
Christ and His work, and to meet him in Heaven. After 
speaking to them he expressed regret that Bertha, the next 
in age, was not at home. When a few hours later she arrived, 
he knew her instantly, and his countenance lighted with 
pleasure as he kissed her and said "Darling Bertha." Little 
Mabel, too young to understand any last words, was tenderly 
kissed. When spoken to of the prospect of seeing and rec- 
ognizing his infant son whom Jesus took from the home in 
Pomfret to the Heavenly mansions, he said, " I think I shall 
be able to pick the little fellow out " ; and shortly after, said, 
" I have been thinking sO much of Christ that I had not 
thought of meeting friends." 



33 

He did not forget that he was a messenger of the Cross, 
and wished to know if there was any one in the house to 
whom God would speak through him. 

Tell the people " I love them, I would do them good," he 
more than once repeated. 

Soon after noon he seemed to be in a dying state, but the 
spirit did not take its flight until a little past midnight. 

Late in the afternoon dear friends sang to him, " Jesus 
Lover of my soul," " Rock of ages," and " My faith looks up 
to Thee." 

It seemed that he felt he was taken to Heaven as he list- 
ened to those beautiful hymns sung by voices which he had 
so often heard in the prayer-meeting ; for a while after, he 
exclaimed, u Am I still on earth? I thought I went to Heaven 
long ago." 

As life was going out he spoke less frequently. About 
half an hour before the end, his wife said, " Do you know 
me?" "Yes." " Are you happy?" "Yes." "Is Christ 
with you ? " " Yes" 

There cotild be no mistaking that last yes. It was clearer 
and stronger than those before it. And it was his last word. 

At a little past midnight on the morning of the 28th of 
May, the conflict of life was over, the body which had en- 
dured such life-long pain and weakness was at rest, and he 
saw " The King in His glory." 

Let us thank and praise the Saviour, and rejoice greatly 
that He was present and mighty to save in the time of great- 
est need. 

" Let me die the death of the righteous, let my last end 
be like his." E. 



i 



34 



A SERMON, 

Commemorative of the late Rev. H. F. Hyde, preached by 
Rev. J. W. backus, at the Methodist Church in Rockville, 
June 20, 1880. 

Philippians I : 21. — For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

It was a question with Paul whether he should live or die. 
He was waiting in bonds to know how it would go with him. 
In such a suspense, he naturally contemplated both aspects 
of the case. He thought of life and he thought of death. 
On the one hand, life, while it was dear to him, was chiefly 
desirable, as an opportunity to serve Christ in the flesh. As 
such an opportunity, it was to him of immeasurable value. 
Probably no one ever loved life better. In it he experienced 
great rejoicings, triumphs, exultations. Undying hope lighted 
up his grand career. He had the enthusiasm of success. 
The work of the Lord prospered in his hands. Sin yielded 
wherever he went, and the truth of Christ mightily prevailed. 
With all his heart he loved Christ and Christ's work, and the 
onward movement of that work filled his highest conception of 
what a human life should be. " For to me to live is Christ." 
This is all there is of life, and this makes life glorious. It 
satisfies the noblest ambition, it accomplishes the greatest 
results, it produces the most happiness, it makes a human 
life large, harmonious, and self -rewarding. This thrill of a 
true life penetrated Paul's entire being, and he could call it 
nothing less than the life of Christ. 

Yet there was something better even than this, and that 
was to die. "To die is gain." If the scale should turn 
against him and remove him from his loved service, he could 
give it up, much as he loved it, because death was better. 
This reverses the common course of nature. If death has 
special attractions for any one, it is usually for the man who 
tires of life, and who feels that he is making no success of 
it. The cultivated Greek and Roman of Paul's day, often 
sought death for this or some more romantic reason. "To 



35 

die is gain," was a Roman maxim. But the peculiarity in 
Paul's case was, that to him death was better than the best 
kind of life. The man who gloried even in tribulation, who 
knew how to be abased and how to abound, who held all 
things in his possession, and had a consciousness of power 
beyond that of Emperors, thought that all this was not so 
good as to die. If he was set at liberty, all well ; if executed, 
it was even better. The true life, even in the midst of its 
grandest achievements, knows something more grand, and 
that is, to put by its achievements and pass on, through the 
narrow gate of death, to something beyond. 

Let us not suppose that this was peculiar to Paul. The 
heroic age of Christian faith has not passed away. The text 
is not a mythical utterance, that gets its fascination from the 
impossibility of being verified now. Without any loss of 
meaning or of reality, it becomes a matter of actual experi- 
ence every day. The better the life is, the greater the ad- 
vantage of leaving it. 

I feel an unshrinking confidence in applying the sentiment 
of the text to the beloved disciple we would honor to-day, 
by a few memorial words. He loved life, its work, its friends, 
its sufferings even, as bringing him into the closest fellow- 
ship with Christ. He was making the noblest success of 
life. He was getting the mastery of it into his own hands, 
yet he thought he could do better. He thought it gain to 
die. To lay his armor down cost him no misgivings, as if 
his work were unfinished, and his hopes disappointed. The 
best work he ever did was, in leaving his work, to disappoint 
disappointment itself, and show how death could die. If to 
him it was Christ to live, it was even a gain to die. Let us 
call to mind what we may of our beloved dead. 

Henry Francis Hyde was born in East Killingly, Dec. 22, 
1834. Here, and in this neighborhood, in Windham County, 
his childhood and youth were spent. Of this time, the most 
important part, or that in which were first developed his early 
character and purpose, was spent in East Brooklyn, where 
his father kept the turnpike gate. There the family lived for 
some half dozen years, after Henry was about twelve years 



36 

of age. Divine Providence appears in little things. Who 
can tell how much the Toll-gate had to do in shaping the 
boy's future life ? His parents were in moderate circum- 
stances, with a farm to take care of. Henry's slender constitu- 
tion, and consequent unfitness for farm work, having infirmi- 
ties that are not unfitly called a life-long thorn in the flesh, 
seemed to mark him, more than any other one of the family, 
as the predestined gate-tender. You can see the boy now, 
springing from his chair at the window, darting from the 
door to the street, without any hat on, to collect the fee from 
the passing traveller. But you will notice that he returns, if 
possible, more eagerly than he came out. What attraction 
has he in that vacant room where he sits waiting for the pas- 
ser-by ? The great attraction of his life — his book. Here 
is where the Providence appears. He could perform Gate 
duty, even with little strength, and that duty on a country 
turnpike afforded him long intervals of leisure, and these 
intervals were God's opportunity for developing unsuspected 
powers in the lad. He had time for reading, and improved 
it, — every moment. This soon appeared to be his ruling, pas- 
sion. At seven years of age he had read the Bible through ; 
led to it, not by the influence of parents or others, but be- 
cause the Bible happened to be the first book in his way. 
Yet he afterwards confessed that it left an abiding influence 
upon him. At the age of fourteen, he had the first money 
that he could call his own. With this he bought a Shakespeare. 
By this time he was well known in the neighborhood for his 
reading habits. Every book in the neighborhood fell a victim 
to that propensity. Every little library in every little home 
was ransacked and devoured. Whoever saw the shadowy 
child on the street walking with unusual sprightliness and 
seeming purpose, might safely conclude he was going for a 
book. Whoever passed the house, might see through the 
curtainless window, the same boy curled up in a rocking- 
chair, bending over the book in his lap ; his feet on the 
round of another chair, and there he might be seen for six 
or even ten hours, in uninterrupted application, except as 
some one passed the Gate. 



37 

And this habit of reading was not an intellectual dissipa- 
tion ; an intoxication of delight that passed off as soon as 
the book was laid aside. He remembered what he read, and 
had it largely at his command for use. As I can learn of no 
artificial aids to the memory, the inference is that the mem- 
ory retained without such helps, by an inherent natural 
power. The retentiveness of memory seemed to be as no- 
ticeable a feature of his intellectual character, as his reading 
habits. For soon after this in the Academy, and later in 
College, he was humorously acknowledged by common con- 
sent to be the " Walking Encyclopedia." 

From what I have already said, we are prepared to learn 
that he was not foremost in the sports of boyhood. Yet he 
liked them, and was a favorite companion in them ; the best 
chess player in town. Still, when he was wanted for outdoor 
sports, it was generally necessary to raise a committee of 
boys, and send for him with instructions to take his book 
from him first, and then take the boy. Thus captured, and 
once enlisted, he submitted to his fate, with a good nature 
that made him all the more a favorite for being rather an 
unwilling victim. 

There was, however, a social boyhood recreation, for which 
he needed no urging. It was the neighborhood debating 
club. In this he was the " moving spirit," the facile princeps. 
For this he did not have to be sent for, nor wait to be cap- 
tured. In this, the controlling power among the boys shifted 
hands, and by common consent was wielded by him. The 
speaking hall was the father's barn, the platform was the 
manger of the horse-stall, the audience, the smaller boys on 
the barn floor. Such was the arrangement for the prelimi- 
nary drill, and the exercises commenced. The lecture, the 
oration, the argument was rehearsed. The different sides 
were heard, the decision was pronounced. But, as one of the 
company concerned writes with affectionate humor : " As a 
boy debater, he was too much for us. While we tried to 
build up our argument, he would at once fall back on the re- 
sources of his memory and overwhelm us with quotations 
from sages and philosophers, till it seemed insipid for us to 
intrude our humble thought and language." 



38 

It was inevitable that the question of a liberal education 
should arise. Rev. Dr. Rice, his pastor, had gathered his 
young people into a Theological and Catechetical class, for 
weekly recitations. Dr. R. writes as follows : " Henry lived 
in the outskirts of the village ; had rather more of the appear- 
ance of a home-keeping country-bred boy than most of his 
companions. He was hot very well dressed, rather awkward 
and very bashful and timid. But in quickness of memory, 
and clearness of discernment, I soon discovered that he sur- 
passed all his associates." This gifted pastor, naturally 
congraulated himself, that he had been enabled to " bring to 
light such superior talent at first hidden away so far from the 
world's notice." It was this pastor who told the boy he must 
be educated. He also persuaded the father, and himself per- 
sonally superintended the first beginnings of the college prepa- 
rations, which were finished in the Village Academy, in 
which, to quote the testimony of one of his comrades, (Dr. 
Hutchins of Columbus, Ohio,) " He was the most brilliant 
scholar the Academy ever produced, and probably the most 
brilliant one the town ever produced." 

In the course of these preparations, there occurred the 
great event of his life, his conversion to God. He had always 
been exceptionally correct in his boy-life, but now he saw 
that he was a sinner, and almost despaired. His sad and 
wondering look at this discovery, impressed itself perma- 
nently upon the memory of the friend who speaks of it. And 
this same friend stood by him till the sorrow was turned into 
joy. Yet before this he had always been thoughtful and ten- 
der. He says himself, writing in 1875, "I think I had a 
sorrow for sin, a love for Christ before the open avowal of 
the hope." Light dawned gradually upon him in connection 
with the faithful and stated preaching of the gospel, of which 
he could never speak in too affectionate terms, as the means 
of his conversion. He united with the church in Danielson- 
ville, July 1, 1855, the day when sixty-nine others, mostly 
young people, stood with him to take the vows of God upon 
them. 

On the fifth day of September, 1855, he started for Am- 



39 

herst College. Before starting, he took an inventory of his 
worldly effects, with this caption : " What I had when I star- 
ted for Amherst College." The inventory included a few 
books, with the estimated value of each, and his clothes, even 
to the minutest articles. He had also $28 in money, which 
by October 8th, was reduced to $2.91, when he received $5 
from home. I can see him now, after having purchased his 
outfit of second-hand furniture, going to his room by himself 
to count the small remainder of his money, and the counte- 
nance slightly changing as the money question stares him in 
the face ; and the pathos of it is no way lessened by noting 
among these boy expenses the item of the doctor's bill. But 
the shrinking modest youth is usually the brave youth. It 
was surely so with him. His bravery never appeared to bet- 
ter advantage than in the calm determination and quiet sub- 
mission, with which he met forebodings of evil. 

In college he pursued his studies uninterruptedly for one 
year and a little more. Kind friends in his native town, 
moved by the growing promise of the young man, and drawn 
to him still more by his amiable manners, extended to him 
their pecuniary favors. His father, whose reading habits he 
had inherited, did all he could for him, but in his Sophomore 
year he was compelled to leave college and teach. He taught 
a district shool in North Woodstock. Returning to College 
in the spring of 1857, he writes: "I have done in seven 
weeks an immense amount of work, having made up in that 
time all that the class had been over in fourteen weeks." 
While he had always hoped " that he might be good enough," 
to use the expression of his boyhood, " to be a minister," he 
seems quite firmly settled in his purpose by the end of 
Sophomore year. At this time he writes, " I shall try very 
hard to do well in the profession I have chosen," and declares 
" I must struggle against the mounting devil of ambition." 

Junior year was an unbroken year in College. In this 
year he was elected by his class one of the editors of the 
College Magazine. In Senior year he taught first in New- 
port, N. H., and afterwards, in the spring of 1859, commenced 
to teach the public High School in Webster, Mass. Returning 



4 o 

to College for graduation, he ranked the sixth in his class. 
Considering the interruptions for teaching, and the depres- 
sions of ill health, such a college success is very rare, and I 
am not surprised that President Seelye should write as fol- 
lows : " I well remember him. Open-hearted and guileless, 
naturally amiable, of frank and winning ways, he possessed 
also remarkable capacity as a. student, and uncommon devo- 
tion as a Christian. He was a good scholar and thinker, 
with a power of clear and precise expression for his thoughts ; 
but I think his most noticeable trait while here was his fidel- 
ity to every duty." 

Having taught a year in Webster, he entered the Union 
Theological Seminary, New York city, in the fall of i860. 
By this time we are through with the boy. Hitherto, supe- 
rior natural endowments have been struggling into recogni- 
tion. They have now come to a distinct self-assertion by 
their own force. A high order of manhood is well assured. 
By whatever disadvantages the boyhood was encumbered, 
they are now left behind as a romantic reminiscence, which 
only sets off more clearly the bright developments of the 
cultured manhood. 

As he comes to the new studies, with intellect girded, and 
eager for the new curriculum, furnished now with the know- 
ledge of German and French, it is gratifying to notice that 
the intellect is not to hold any undue prominence. He is 
not studying Theology as a mere science or for a profession. 
The Christian manhood begins to take to itself symmetry. 
The heart enlarges, He does missionary work in New York 
city, and the sight of his eyes affects his heart. The foun- 
tains of emotion are unsealed. Sympathy for men is awak- 
ened. Love for sinners comes in to direct his intellectual 
faculties. Study is simply the means for doing good. Ac- 
cordingly he writes : " Pray God that I may grow in grace 
above everything else. The great thing is to be a true 
Christian, to love all men." There is the clearest evidence of 
a careful but healthy introspection of himself. He scans his 
motives and seeks to purify them, " It is a good thing," he 
writes, " to find out our special faults, and while trying to 



41 

correct them, make them a subject of special prayer. There 
should be prayer for singleness of purpose. The chief thing 
in life is to save souls ; not to get a good place, nor to ac- 
quire great learning." The beginning of his professional 
study seems to take him into a sunnier atmosphere spiritu- 
ally. A clearer experience of spiritual things comes in to 
enlarge the range of his thought, and temper his aspirations. 

In the fall of '61 he left the Union Seminary, and entered 
the Seminary in East Windsor. Among other advantages 
of this institution, he found what was still a most important 
one to him, greater pecuniary aid. I may also refer to a face- 
tious remark of his, at the time, for a further explanation of 
the change. " I left New York," he said, " to get away from 
the book stores, and to try to break off from at least one 
besetting sin — buying books!' From this institution, now 
known as the Theological Seminary of Hartford, he received 
honor. He also conferred honor upon it. He taught in it, 
while pastor of the Second Church in this village, in the 
winter of '74-5, as a substitute for Dr. Vermilye. He has 
been one of its trustees from the year 1872, till his death. 
At the last anniversary in Hartford, he was to have given an 
address before the Alumni. His subject was " The idolatry 
of talent." Could he have written that address, and if it had 
been his last work, it would have given a singular complete- 
ness to his life. For as he began with the conviction that 
"the chief thing in life is to save souls, and not to acquire 
great learning," he would have ended with the re-affirmation 
of the same thought. 

I need now scarcely more than indicate the steps by which 
he passed ultimately to the pastorate of the Second Congre- 
gational Church of this village. He was licensed to preach 
in June of 1862, by the Tolland County Association, assem- 
bled in Tolland. On his return from Tolland to East Wind- 
sor, he passed through Rockville. In his description of the 
ride, his pen seems to betray a partiality for the scenery of 
this town ; the beautiful lake and its fringe of forest, its rare 
flowers, the attractions of the village itself, which both nature 
and art had brought together here. May we not fancy that 
6 



42 

a first love was unconsciously moving in his heart ! The 
following August he preached his first sermon in Danielson- 
ville, from Gen. iii, 8, deducing from it this subject : Sin, the 
separation from God. In November, 1863, he was married 
to Miss Ellen May. June i, 1864, while supplying in West 
Woodstock, he received a call to settle, and the next autumn 
was installed pastor of the same church, where he remained 
two years and a half longer, having in the mean time declined 
a call from the church in Pomfret, but which, being renewed 
a year later in the spring of 1867, he accepted and remained 
there five years. Thirty or forty hopeful conversions were 
in part the fruit of his ministry in West Woodstock. In 
Pomfret, his clear and logical discourses were the constant 
delight of a congregation cultivated above the average of 
country parishes. But he was sought for in a wider field, 
and accepted the call to the Second Church in Rockville, over 
which he was installed July 5, 1872. As might have been 
expected, his eight years of ministry in this place have been 
the best part of his life for effective service. With his pre- 
vious experience and furnishings, the new and more varied 
service has only developed more varied gifts and shown him 
grandly equal to the high expectation that awaited him here. 

And now that we have followed our departed brother to 
that period of his life when his powers are matured, and to 
the work in which the real man most effectually declares 
itself, it seems to be required of me to make out a brief esti- 
mate of him derived from two or three salient points of the 
man. 

1. From his social nature. In his preparatory courses, 
and even in the course of his pastorate here, at different 
times he has been thrown among different circles of asso- 
ciates. In teaching here and there, in his temporary health 
resorts, he made life-long friendships. This is noticeable. 
Strangers were drawn to him. He was not long a new comer, 
in -a strange place. His life seemed to mingle with the 
stranger life around, and converted the stranger into a friend. 
He was unselfish. He had a warm heart, and an active sym- 
pathy. Children would always love him anywhere. He was 



43 

himself confiding — childlike. His heart seemed to be in his 
face, lighting his features with an unmistakable benignity. 
People felt at ease in his friendship, secure in his sincerity, 
and improved by his purity of mind. All this made him a 
good converses Aside from his resources of knowledge, 
which always made his conversation instructive, there was 
something kind and genial in it which, also made it a bond of 
union between himself and others. The winter of '76 he 
spent in Jacksonville, Florida, for his health. His home was 
with Judge Archibald, of that town. Mrs. Archibald has 
since died. Mr. Hyde's recollections of this remarkable 
woman are embodied in a brief memorial sketch, published 
in a little book (1878), with similar tributes from other 
friends, and edited by himself. In this sketch of his (which 
by the way must be called a gem of its kind), there occurs 
this passage : " I shall always remember with great pleasure 
the conversations which I was permitted to have with her, 
upon books, art, poetry, and the more practical every-day 
topics of life and how to use it, upon religion and doctrine, 
prayer and duty, how to do good, and to live rightly." This 
is the deserved tribute to the gifted friend. It is, also, though 
unconsciously, an equally deserved tribute to himself. It 
gives a glimpse of his social life, and reveals the qualities 
of mind and heart that invariably found friends wherever he 
was. 

2. We shall now, I think, take an affectionate pleasure in 
recalling a few of his intellectual traits. He had an eminently 
acute and discriminating mind. He presented a thought 
so that you could see it in clear relief, separated from every 
thing that did not belong to it. His mind was well fitted for 
metaphysical investigation, and he was fond of such studies. 
He opened a clear path through the intricacies of a difficult 
subject, and left the hearer or reader wiser for following him. 

His mind was rather eclectic than original. Being widely 
read, probably beyond the majority of men in the ministry, 
he brought others' thoughts to the bar of his own judgment, 
subjected them to the unsparing scrutiny of his own insight, 
and passed upon them the sentence of his own mind. But 



44 

his conclusions were in the highest degree independent, and 
they were grasped with a power of conviction not easily 
shaken. It was this cast of mind that led him to look on all 
sides of a subject and come to his conclusions from a wide 
induction of particulars. If he had been given to the study 
and practice of law, he would have been a better judge than 
advocate. He would have taken more kindly to the work of 
weighing evidence, and balancing opinions, and finding out 
patiently and carefully what was exactly, and severely, and 
everlastingly just and right, than he would to the work of 
driving a point at all hazards. He never could have been a 
theological partisan. He cared too much for the truth itself 
and was too judicial in his opinions. He could see and ap- 
preciate the truth or half truth, in a practical error. Had he 
lived in the days of the Taylor and Tyler controversy, he 
would have given as cordial a hearing to one side as the 
other, and would have preserved an independent poise be- 
tween both. He had the faculty of seeing, as Columbus did, 
that there might be another hemisphere opposite his own, 
and that both were necessary to make out the perfect whole. 
Had he lived in the midst of the Unitarian controversy, his 
Orthodoxy, abhorring cant, would have embraced all that was 
truly liberal in his opponents, and they would have said, 
" His preaching is not so very bad, after all." They would 
have been pleased with it, and many would fyave been amazed 
that such good Unitarianism, as his seemed to them at first, 
could have made such good Orthodoxy as theirs became at 
last. Had he lived in the days of the Reformation, he would 
have been a Melancthon rather than a Luther ; having the 
classic tastes, and refined sentiments, and judicial mental 
bearing which Melancthon had, rather than the thunder-storm 
words and ways of Luther. But no man was ever more inde- 
pendent in thought or positive and pronounced in opinion 
than he ; only his independence stood not so much in the 
isolated grandeur of originality, as in the imperial surveys he 
took of the whole world of thought, and the more imperial 
confidence with which he marked out his own way, and set 
up his own land marks in it. Dr. Emmons once said of a 



45 

certain quaternion of theologians : " The first is Calvinisti- 
calish, the second is Calvinistical, the third is Calvinistic, 
the fourth a Calvinist." Aside from the particular phase of 
theology here spoken of — though in this regard Mr. Hyde 
would not probably have differed essentially — the principle of 
the fourth he always did exemplify. " He hated to be some- 
thing/^ : " " somewhat more of yes than no, and rather more 
of no than yes."* Mr. Hyde was a substantive, and not an 
adjective. One of his favorite hymns has this stanza: 

And right is right, since God is God, 

And right the day must win, 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin. 

I am not surprised that this was a favorite hymn with him. 

His leading intellectual trait, if I mistake not, was a logical 
acuteness, a power of clear and cogent reasoning, with the 
command of wide resources by which he led others into true 
knowledge. 

This being so, his imagination took a subordinate place, 
in his teaching. It was a vivid, and highly cultivated faculty. 
It gave him a poetic insight. It was refined by familiarity 
with artistic productions. It came to his aid very beautifully 
in his courses of strong thought, to brighten them up and 
make them attractive even to an unthinking man : as the 
bird song, or the flower bloom by the way, cheers the step of 
toil. His imagination never ran away with him. It was in 
subjection to him, and not he to it. He never used illustra- 
tions where there was nothing to illustrate. And so his 
rhetorical art did not become artifice, but seemed like a con- 
tribution of nature itself, for simplicity and telling effect. 
Sometimes the imagination is impertinent and rushes in only 
to divert attention and confuse a thought. Mr. Hyde's rhet- 
oric was not indulged any farther than to be a help to his 
logic. 

It is not always, perhaps not often, that so logical a mind 
should have so much emotion. Yet this was one secret of 

* Prof. Park's Memoir of Dr. Emmons. Page 422. 



4 6 

his power. " He loved all men," and was keenly susceptible 
to every appeal from human want. His thought, his manner, 
his tones betrayed unaffected sympathy, which not unfre- 
quently became magnetic, and the clear and seemingly unim- 
passioned speech, softened and melted us to tears. 

3. A word should be said of his practical turn of mind. 
When he was a boy, some fears were expressed lest, if -en- 
couraged to get an education, he should bury himself in his 
books, and be spoiled for practical usefulness. Indeed one 
of his early friends, probably with the boyhood, rather than 
the manhood in his mind, raises the question whether he 
might not have accomplished even a greater success as a 
Professor, than he has done as a minister. I should think 
not, because, as it proves, he has an intensely practical nature. 
How could he teach Political Economy to students, without 
rushing out into the world to lay plans for taking hold of the 
rum shop ? How could he sit in his chair, and teach Moral 
Philosophy, without plunging in among men, to make them 
moral ? How could he teach Sociology, without putting up 
a Library and Reading Room for working young men? He 
was made to live close to the people : a man of work, patient 
of details, an organizer, a helper and a friend of all men. He 
loved books, but he loved men more, because he loved Christ 
supremely, and could say with the Apostle, " For to me to 
live is Christ." His preaching was practical. It is a com- 
mon saving among his people that " Mr. Hyde's preaching 
always hits me somewhere." 

We have thus taken note of the man from three distinct 
points of view, — the social, the intellectual, the practical. 
I have chosen these three lines of observation, because 
they seem to present a fine combination, and somewhat re- 
markable. I think it is rare that these groups of qualities 
are found so complete in the same person. 

In drawing these commemorative reflections to a close, I 
must be allowed to indulge in a word of appreciation less 
critical, and with the unrestraint of fraternal love. This 
sketch, imperfect as it is, has brought a blessing to myself, 
by prolonging the companionship of the departed. I have 
seemed to stay in his presence, and to feel its elevating in- 



47 

fluence. I have been reminded of the welcome he gave me 
to my new field of labor. I seem again to have heard his 
kind words, and to have felt again the honest emphasis he 
gave them, in the pressure of his warm right hand. He has 
always kept his pledge of fraternal faithfulness. I felt that 
he renewed it on his death-bed, when with his hand in mine 
he joined with me in the last prayer. May I hope it was 
the Right Hand of Fellowship over again, and a welcome 
to a new partnership in a purer ministry ! 

It seems to me that the grandeur of a true life never ap- 
pears more strikingly, than when it faces the last enemy. 
There it stands before the king of terrors, unterrified. The 
faith is then all it has claimed to be. There is nothing to 
take back. It is all it promised, and more. It is stronger 
and brighter as the test is severer. It re-affirms, as if with 
angelic words, all it has said before. Seemingly in the con- 
flicts of life, that faith may waver, and hesitate, and live more 
in its inner convictions than its outward victories. But the 
approach of death seems to rouse it, and carry it beyond 
itself, as it were, in its testimonies. "All right up there!" 
the dying pastor exclaimed, as if with new vision ; " Christ 
is not far away." Such is the strong and swift utterance as 
the crisis comes. Only a few days before his death he spoke 
of the S. S. Centenary, with animation. At the same time, 
the countenance slightly changing, the face partly hidden in 
the pillow, he says: "But I am wanted here." And the 
bravery of the submission seemed to me of the highest order. 
Now the evidences of Christianity stand very much in facts. 
A fact cannot be disputed. You know there are some who 
express doubts about the reality of religion. Look at the 
fact of a triumphant death. You sometimes argue against 
the opinions and beliefs of religion. How shall you argue 
with that fact ? If I could see unbelief grow stronger at the 
hour of death, if I could hear it utter a shout of victory, if I 
could see it illuminated and transfigured, if some hidden 
power should come to its rescue at last, and put irresistible 
speech into its mouth, there would be the telling fact. That 
fact has never been discovered. Unbelief goes out in dark- 



4« 

ness — at best never jubilant. It never sings in death nor 
eagerly reaches forward. But the fact is, that your beloved 
pastor would tell you in death all he told you in life, and 
with a speech fired with heaven's glow ; in sentences sharp 
and swift, as if he would put all his past teaching into them. 
One such fact ought to be enough to demolish and scatter to 
the four winds of heaven all the unbelief of the world. Nor 
does it speak to the reason alone, but to the heart also. He 
seems to have left behind him a pathway of light, from which 
our eyes cannot wander. And down the golden highway, we 
seem to hear the heart-lingerings of the old love. "Not as 
in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, 
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, * * * 
that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run 
in vain, neither labored in vain." 



PART I'll. 



I. 

ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

[Preached, Pomfret, August 6, 1871.] 



John xix, 20. — And it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. 

Pilate had yielded to the vindictive demands of the Jews 
and had crucified our Lord. But when, in accordance with 
custom, he affixed the cause of his condemnation to the cross, 
he determined to show the Jews that he deemed their accu- 
sation only the fruit of their envy and hatred. He expressed 
also his contempt for the people and their frequent insurrec- 
tionary tumults by writing, as the only reason for putting 
Christ to death, " This is the King of the Jews." 

Pilate wrote upon the impulse of the moment and with 
bitter self-accusation, what seemed best calculated to throw 
off the responsibility upon the Jews. But in the providence 
of God his words, so hastily written, were just the words to 
attest unto the world the fulfillment of prophecy, that Mes- 
siah, Son of David, should come to reign, and should be 
lifted up. 

In writing this inscription in three languages, likewise, 
Pilate was conscious only of seeking to give the utmost pub- 
licity to the inscription. The three languages were the most 
wide-spread in the world at that time. The Latin was the 
governmental language ; the Greek the literary, the written 
language in that part of the world ; the Hebrew, that spoken 
by the common people. Thus, all, — the officials, the soldiery, 
the strangers from all parts of the empire, and those who 
dwelt in Judea and Galilee, might read that He who was 
dying there on the cross was King of the Jews, or a pre- 
tended King. But the providence of God designed that 
there should be another and far deeper meaning conveyed 
by those three tongues to us who read the inscription in the 



52 

light of the unfolding of history and in the manifest purpose 
of Jehovah. 

These were the languages which were to spread all over 
the world the glad tidings of salvation purchased by this 
death on the cross. Not now merely was Jesus to be an- 
nounced King, not mockingly but in reality, and these 
tongues were to be the chief instrument of the proclamation. 
It was, moreover, through the Jews, the Greeks, and the 
Romans that the earth had been prepared for the advent and 
the work of this King. 

The fullness of time had come, because, first, God had 
wrought into the hearts and lives of his people Israel the 
belief in one God and impressed upon them, through His 
providence, the desire and the hope of a deliverer ; because, 
secondly, Greek culture and learning, Greek philosophy and 
its failure had made the minds of men ready to hearken to the 
deepest truths ; and, finally, Roman sovereignty and law had 
bound the nations together and made communication every- 
where possible. These were God's preparation for the coming 
of Christ. Thus Pilate's inscription, meant for a taunt, was 
both a history and a prophecy, telling to any one who could 
read aright how all forces, spiritual, mental, and physical, had 
been bent and were to bend into subserviency to God's 
mighty plan of redemption. 

But we perceive yet another significance in the fact of the 
three conjoined languages upon the cross. Not only of pre- 
vious preparation and of future triumph does it speak, but it 
proclaims the truth that these are met in Christ, and that 
religion and culture and law were now to be united in a 
new faith, and were to pour forth their blessing, hence, upon 
a world. 

As the Queen of Sheba brought her richest treasures to 
do homage to the wisdom of Solomon, as the wise men of the 
East poured out their bounteous gifts in adoration of the 
infant Redeemer, so did the great nations of the earth con- 
tribute their wealth, mental and spiritual, to endow the 
religion of Him who was wiser than Solomon, more glorious 
than the wise men's highest aspirations. 



53 

Our Lord in his person concentrated all the beauty and 
worth and nobility of character which had ever dwelt in men. 
In like manner all that the wisest, the best, and the strongest 
had thought and planned and wrought out, was to be collected 
together to endow the new organization which was to gather 
up these rich treasures and then scatter them for the benefit 
of men. 

This union and this distribution, the reading upon the 
cross symbolizes, and as such I design to interpret it more 
at length in this discourse. 

The three tongues speak to us then, first, of the unifying 
of Jewish religion, Greek culture, and Roman law into 
Christianity. Religion had its birth and best development 
in Palestine, or rather in Mesopotamia to be carried into 
Palestine. To Abraham and his descendants had God 
revealed himself. Their Psalmists and Prophets had been 
inspired of God to utter grandest truths of God and the soul 
of man, to speak of national and private sins on the one 
hand, and of a glorious redemption on the other. Through 
these teachings of the spirit of God, and through the varied 
lessons of their history, they had come to cling to the doc- 
trines of the existence and spirituality of the Creator and of 
his activity in the affairs of the world. We are apt to think 
of the Jews of the time of Christ as only hard, bigoted, worldly 
Pharisees, as the haters of goodness and the murderers of 
their Lord ; but we must remember that there were true 
Israelites then, and that among them alone dwelt the pure 
knowledge of God. Our Lord himself averred, " Salva- 
tion is of the Jews." For this purpose had the Lord been 
leading them for the long centuries, that there might be 
among them hearts ready to receive him when he should 
come, and souls fitted to apprehend and to appropriate his 
teachings and the truths flowing out from his life and death. 
The new religion gathered up the bequests of the old, added 
life, spirit, vigor, to them, incorporated them into its own 
teachings ; and these, together, made the fundamental ele- 
ment of that power which was to conquer the world. 

But God had been leading other nations by ways which 



54 

they knew not, but by which they were to best subserve His 
plan. As unto the people of Israel it was given to hold the 
great truths of religion in their keeping, unto the Greeks it 
had been given to bring to their most perfect development 
the mind and body of man. What the most assiduous intel- 
lectual and physical culture could do for humanity, that the 
people of Athens and Sparta had accomplished. And if all 
their striving seemed to fail to bring the highest good to 
man, and could not save them from ultimate destruction, yet 
their work was not to end in themselves, but was to subserve 
the purposes of God in adding an element for the improve- 
ment of future generations. 

What the love and expression of the most perfect material 
beauty could effect for the refinement of man, the Greeks did 
by their matchless works of art. The intellect, too, would seem 
to have received the largest development possible through 
philosophical search for truth and the exercise of the poetic 
faculty ; for it was in Greece that philosophy and poetry 
reached their utmost perfection. What cultivation of the 
mind could do for man without God's truth to feed it, may 
be seen by looking at Greece when at the acme of her glory. 
Although this culture was one-sided, leaving the soul and 
heart unfurnished with their proper nutriment, and therefore 
unable to keep the people from sinking into degradation, and 
being weakened by vice and consumed by folly, yet it was 
not to be in vain that among the little isles of the Egean, and 
the rocky peninsulas of South Eastern Europe, human wis- 
dom had elaborated its profoundest reflection, imagination 
had taken its boldest flights, and language had been brought 
into its most perfect form. Though this culture was inad- 
equate for the spiritual or even for the temporal salvation 
of the people who had rejoiced in it, yet it was to be used for 
bringing the tidings of salvation to the ears of men, and was 
to be incorporated into or made subservient to the religion 
which was to accomplish what Grecian culture itself could 
never do for man. 

In yet another direction had Rome and her mighty power 
been providing resources for Christianity to use. She had 



55 

prepared the way for its rapid promulgation by consolidating 
the civilized world into one vast empire and extending her 
protecting arm wherever men should desire to travel, and by 
constructing those splendid highways which rendered inter- 
course easy and speedy from one part to another. But 
besides this work of preparation she was providing elements 
which should help to strengthen and establish the new reli- 
gion, and in after times should be a power in the progress 
and elevation of the race. Law and government, the bonds 
of the state, had been brought far towards perfection during 
the more than seven centuries in which Rome had been 
attaining to universal empire. What might be wrought 
through the political machinery by the mighty power of law 
and the well-disciplined state, aided by Grecian learning and 
art, for the prosperity and well-being of man, Rome had well 
endeavored to effect. The bonds were not sufficient to hold 
together the mighty empire which had been thus constructed, 
much less could these materials build up a perfect society, 
but they could be employed, and God designed that they 
should be employed for the ultimate building up of a kingdom 
which should indeed be an empire of the world — the kingdom 
of God on earth. 

Thus religion, culture, and law should unite to be the con- 
stituent elements which should form the mighty power to 
perfect the individual, to harmonize society, to mold the ideal 
state, and the faultless government. Thus we discover the 
meaning of the three inscriptions on the cross, and what the 
Hebrew and the Greek and Latin each represents. Chris- 
tianity brings together and holds all that these designate. 
And see how wonderfully God preserves whatever may be 
employed for the furtherance of His plans, even out of the 
great destructions of time. Through numberless convul- 
sions and catastrophes of the primeval earth there were 
treasured up wealth of minerals and stores of fuel which 
should in after ages come to the light for ministering to the 
comfort and delight of man. For an almost infinite period 
they were concealed in the secret recesses of the earth, but 
the very convulsions which seemed to overwhelm and bury 



56 

them forever, supreme wisdom designed should be the means 
of preserving them against the time of greatest need. Thus 
the destruction which will come upon these bodies, and the 
corruption which shall consume them, shall serve, we believe, 
through God's wonderful working, only to hide the germ out 
of which shall grow at last the perfect spiritual body. 

In like manner were the splendid results of Grecian art 
and literature buried for centuries, withdrawn as it might 
seem forever from the possibility of use to man. The choice 
products of her language and art found reception for a sea- 
son in Rome, but the mighty empire itself could not long 
protect them, but in its own ruins covered them from the 
knowledge of man. The Goths and Vandals shattered the 
mighty structure which had been so many centuries in build- 
ing, and swept into apparent final oblivion whatever man 
had hitherto done for the civilization and progress of the 
race. But this seeming destruction and burial was only that 
God's work might be made apparent above the schemes and 
efforts of man. What there was of benefit to humanity, God 
caused to emerge from the desolation and to lend its aid for 
the regeneration of the nations. On the moldering foun- 
dations of the fallen empire arose the spiritual hierarchy, 
which again bound the nations together, not conquered by 
armed soldiers as before, but by missionaries of the cross. 
And if the Roman church became in after times too ambi- 
tious and grasping, if it declined from its spirituality, and did 
not perform well its work for the souls of men, yet we see the 
purpose of God in giving it the inheritance of the old Roman 
empire. It made Christianity, even if in many cases a nom- 
inal religion merely, the mistress of the nations which were 
to perform the great part in history, and it gave Christianity 
the vantage and the foremost place in the civilization that 
was to be. 

The traditions of the mighty system, too, by which so 
many nations had been consolidated into an almost universal 
empire, were to be retained by the church and appropriated 
to its own universal sway. The sense of law, the value of 
social unity, the grand ideal of constitutional states, and 



57 

dimly the consciousness of the rights — the power of the 
people, were handed down half wittingly and emerged at 
length from the darkness of the feudal ages to become the 
prized boon of modern nations. Thus has the legacy of old 
Rome, hid away in corners for a time, been given again to 
the rightful heirs, when through the training of Christianity 
they had become able to use it for their good. Concealed 
still more completely were the possessions which Greece had 
bequeathed, except indeed her incomparable language which 
had to be the winged messenger to carry the glad tidings of 
salvation to those who sat in waiting. But that was soon 
discarded and her philosophy classed with heresy, so that for 
centuries, Greece was to bide her hour for work' upon the 
minds of men. And it was the church's office to bring her 
influence again to bear, and at length to unite her culture to 
religious faith. The school-men studied the philosophy of 
Aristotle and based their theology upon his theorems and 
categories ; the monks exhumed from the dust of ages the 
old classic authors, and filled up their tedious days by copy- 
ing them or covering over the parchments which contained 
them with the lives of saints and martyrs. The writers of 
antiquity began to be taught and studied, the old culture 
widened man's sphere of thought, and awakened that ques- 
tioning spirit which at length made them dissatisfied with 
the apprehension, the narrowness, and bigotry of the papal 
hierarchy. And we all know how that desire to burst re- 
straints of man's making, grew until it issued in the reforma- 
tion. Thus culture promoting liberality of sentiment and 
breadth of thought in Christendom, performing its part in 
that great step of progress which reinstated the religion of 
Christ as a power over the hearts and lives of men, this cul- 
ture, I say, when combined with Christianity, constitutes the 
power by which men are brought to perfection. Thus, was 
the prophesy implied in the counsels of God, of the threefold 
inscription on the cross, fulfilled. Religion and culture and 
law, all flow again from the cross as powers combined into 
one to make what we now call Christianity. 

So much for the fulfillment of the unconscious prophecy of 



58 

Pilate concerning the external relations of Christianity with 
the Jewish religiousness, Grecian culture and Roman govern- 
ment. 

We advance another step and observe that all that these 
had for the good of man, Christ's religion contained. What 
the Greek aimed after, his loftiest ideal, is found in Chris- 
tianity. Whatever the Roman conception of an universal 
government and the right union of all parts into a harmoni- 
ous whole could effect for man Christianity provides for. 
And likewise Jewish piety and morality have been intensified 
and spiritualized through Christianity. 

We may expand this observation and taking the character- 
istics of three peoples as epitomizing those of all nations, 
affirm with truth that in Christianity is found the realizations 
of all men's aspirations, the end for which in their best mo- 
ments they have earnestly sought. It has often been one of 
the favorite devices of the opponents of Christianity, to 
search in heathen writings, and among other religions, to find 
there precepts of morality, teachings of religious truth, reve- 
lations of God similar to those which fell from the lips of 
Christ, or are written in the New Testament. 

Finding such detached fragments, here and there, they 
have rejoiced as if by these Christianity had been anticipated 
or superseded. They have exulted over the finding of the 
shattered pieces more than when they behold the complete, 
finished statue in its perfect beauty. For what they claim 
is true if only we reverse their order of statement. They 
state that what is contained in Christianity, may be found in 
other religions. And it is a fact that what of truth other 
religions held, Christianity has combined into itself. The 
aspirations which the religious instincts of men have prompt- 
ed in one and another, are all fulfilled in Christ's life and 
revelations. The ideal, which earnest men have sought after 
for themselves and the world, has its realization in the glori- 
ous teachings of our religion. Glimpses of truth concerning 
God, the soul and the spiritual life in God, have at different 
times flashed upon the gaze of men like the stars here and 
there shining through the clouds in a stormy night. Christ, 



59 

as if by a magic wand, has dispersed all the clouds, and the 
whole beauty and glory of the visible sky of truth has beamed 
forth to light man on his voyage to the further shore. 

Or, to vary the figure, we may say that the great light of 
the central sun has overpowered the lesser lights by absorb- 
ing them into itself. 

"I am the light of the world" was Christ's own declara- 
tion, a light not seen by many, or seen only in reflection, but 
none the less the Sun of Righteousness from which all lesser 
luminaries have borrowed their milder lustre. 

" I am the Truth" was again the claim of Christ ; an 
affirmation which we can again and again substantiate by 
tracing each element of religion which we meet up to him as 
the great unifying and complete whole. And we need bear in 
mind that it is Christ that is the truth ; not what he teaches, 
not the facts of his life taken separately, but his person, his 
divinity, his humanity. It is now that we find the central 
light which illuminates all the history of religion in heathen- 
dom and Judaism as well as in Christianity. Placing our- 
selves by the cross of our Redeemer, we gaze out into the 
the darkness of idolatry, and the rays beaming thence, dis- 
close to us the multitudinous forms of worship, and the num- 
berless deities, the sacrifices, the prayers, the deep, tragic 
thinking and searching of the vast throngs who have been 
thus seeking a way to God, and as we thus look we begin to 
grasp the meaning of it all, and behold the explanation : they 
ignorantly zvorship the false ; but it is because there is a 
true, and the spirit is moving them toward it, as the star drew 
the wise men from the East to the cradle. They offer sacri- 
fices because a sacrifice is necessary to relieve them from their 
burden, and blindly they grope after the true sacrifice. They 
seek after God, and God is coming, indeed has come to earth 
to seek them straying into the wilderness. The great reli- 
gions of the globe have in one way or another by symbol or 
explicit teaching signified a yearning after a union of human- 
ity with divinity. 

The absorption of Brahminism, the purification by fire, of 
Zoroastrianism, the many incarnations of Egyptian and Indian 



6o 

deities, the humanizing of the gods of Greece, testify to this 
almost universal desire and belief of man, that humanity 
should at length have part in divinity that the divine should 
become human. 

These aspirations, these strivings are all met and answered 
in the incarnation of the Son of God. The divine has thus 
been brought down into the comprehension and reach of man ; 
humanity has thus been lifted up into divinity. The God 
man unifies all religious truth and makes it himself ; for 
when by his incarnation and sacrifice he has made perfection 
possible to man, the end and aim of all the soul's yearnings 
and strivings have been found. The absorption into deity of 
the Indian saga, the utmost limit of culture of the Greek 
philosopher cannot reach so far as this for the individual ; the 
completest realization of the dreams of the Romans of uni- 
versal social order and unity, cannot surpass what it shall 
accomplish for society and the state. 

Thus the ideal of all religions and nations is found in the 
coming of Christ and in the cross. 

And again, we remark, modern thought and the aspirations 
of to-day have their foundation and their fulfillment likewise 
here. There can be no antagonism between scientific and 
religious truth. All truth is religious. There could have 
been no science without the habits of thought, the humility, 
the patience, the teachableness, above all, the keen love of 
truth for its own sake which Christianity teaches and of which 
it has for eighteen hundred years offered countless examples. 
There would be wanting the greatest stimulus to culture if 
there were absent that yearning to be freed from imperfec- 
tion which our religion inspires, and which lies at the begin- 
ning and must be the constant accompaniment of what we 
call progress. Society would be dissolved and perish if the 
great principles of Christianity, the brotherhood of man, the 
redemption of the race through a divine Redeemer, and im- 
mortality were lost sight of. Vain were all laws of the state, 
all attempts to unify an empire, if the divine law were abol- 
ished and through divine energy no longer acted upon indi- 
viduals to raise them up from sin and vice. Modern thought 



61 

and modern reason boast themselves much of their inde- 
pendence of and superiority to the old doctrines of faith. 
But besides what they owe in the past to the direct influence 
of the truths of our religion, it will be found their end and 
object, so far forth as they have the good of man in view, 
have been anticipated by and are incorporated in the incar- 
nation and sacrifice of Christ. 

There are two new gospels proposed by modern thought — 
the gospel of culture and the gospel of law. I say new 
gospels, but in what I have said of Greece and Rome do we 
not see that they are old, that they have already been weighed 
and been found wanting ? And besides, the gospel of law, 
though differing in the respect that it is now the law of nature 
and not of man, yet has all the harshness, rigor, and inexorable 
severity of the old. Mr. Huxley, one of its leading disciples, 
says that " Nature which is to teach us and lead us on in the 
path of limitless progress, has no way of teaching but by a 
word and a blow, and the blow comes first." 

We turn from this stern mistress unto the master whose 
teaching and example we are taught to follow, and we have 
the promise of being led along the same path by a hand that 
is never raised to strike us, and to which we can cling, in 
loving trust. We hear his voice only to cheer, to warn, and 
to encourage us ; his gentle invitations fall upon our ears, 
and we are urged by them to hasten on. We see him in his 
beauty ; his grace and the glory of his perfection are constant 
inspirers to us to hasten to become like him. And from the 
cradle of Bethlehem in which he lay, from the cross on which 
he hung dying, and from the grave out of which he has risen, 
comes the ever cheering hope that because God has come 
down and taken humanity up into his bosom and overcome 
death for us, therefore we may all rise over the grave and 
dwell with divinity. 

It is the perfection of the individual and of society, which 
is the aim of our religion, as well as that of the most enthu- 
siastic of modern philosophers, but our way towards it is not 
to be trodden over a dark and lonely road ; a harsh mistress 
ever meeting us with rebuffs and discouragements and show- 



62 

ing us at the best only a very dim hope that the race shall 
reach the goal, while the countless individuals who throng 
the way shall be trodden under foot and perish, — costly sacri- 
fices of humanity for a dubious end, instead of the infinite 
ransom paid by divinity for a certain deliverance. 

Christianity nowhere contradicts the laws of nature ; she 
everywhere reaffirms them, even in her miracles, even in the 
greatest of all miracles, the incarnation and resurrection. 
She asserts natures to be unchangeable. She adds the super- 
natural because nature is not sufficient in her unalterable 
economy to effect the great object, the ultimate redemption 
of man, the raising him and. the race to perfection. Christ- 
ianity does not reject culture, education by law or by study ; 
she uses them and supplements them by an element which 
strengthens the power and refines the grace which they can 
give. Historically, as well as in her essential principles, 
we find it true that whatever there is of good, whatever of 
truth, whatever of beauty, Christianity has been found capable 
of appropriating and her truest disciples willing to receive. It 
is only insisted upon by her Founder that righteousness and 
the kingdom of God shall hold the first place in the heart, and 
then naturally, logically, all the other things are added for the 
well-being of man. 

The New Testament insists, and from the fact that God 
has taken all humanity up into himself must insist, upon the 
perfection of the whole man. It promises, and by promising 
enjoins, the complete sanctification of mind and body as well 
as soul. It looks forward to the complete building up of each 
individual that is in Christ Jesus, and through this to the 
complete restoration of the kingdom of God on earth. 
Nothing more glorious for man can be thought of than the 
hopes and promises held out by the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
all flowing from the mighty fact that He, the mighty Son of 
God, has taken flesh and expiated the sins of the world. 

Behold here the simplicity, the vast comprehensiveness of 
the plan of God. One single fact accepted and acted upon 
puts us all in the highway of infinite progress. Starting from 
this, all work for the good of man, for the advancement of 



63 

the race, becomes successful ; starting anywhere else, all is 
thrown into confusion. Culture, dissevered from religion, 
will produce a people whose intellect may be as clear and 
strong and active as was that of the ancient Grecians, but 
gentleness, kindness, love, and purity of heart and manners 
will die out, and vice and corruption will hurry them to 
destruction. 

Law, order, whether it be social or natural, as the only 
basis of society or the state may build up a huge material 
frame-work, but it will soon become all rotten within, and the 
discordant mass will fall to the ground by its own weight, as 
the great Roman empire, fell. For in each of these man 
starts in his toilsome work alone, and there is not inherent 
force sufficient in mere humanity, nor in nature, to carry 
him prosperously to the completion of his task. We must 
add divinity to our forces to overcome the inertia of a wicked 
world and move it on in the path of progress. And this 
force we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. United to him we 
each move heavenward. Beginning with him, using all other 
forces as we may, we advance the whole race toward the 
millennial goal. 

How grand in its simplicity is the power put into our 
hands, "brethren and sisters ? In preaching Christ by our 
word and lives we preach reform, we help toward good gov- 
ernment, we build up a strong, harmonious society, we spread 
enlightenment, we confer comfort, we aid true science ; 
goodness, truth, and blessedness are dispensed on every 
hand. 

In preaching Christ we are performing the work of phi- 
losophers, statesmen, philanthropists. Having our own lives 
hid with Christ in God, we take hold on the eternal and the 
infinite. Then have we entered on a boundless ocean, 
scattered all over with enchanted, blessed isles, from one to 
another of which we sail, taking new enjoyment and receiving 
new good at each. We look back with grateful joy to the 
beginning of our course and behold the pure light gleaming 
from the cradle of Christ, shining all the way down to the 
cross and thence to our hearts. We look around at the ad- 



64 

vancing hosts, we view with surprised gladness the grand 
work we are together accomplishing, how knowledge and 
wisdom are increasing and blessing man, how good govern- 
ment and a harmonious society are growing up under the 
hand of Christlike men, how misery and sin are disappearing, 
and over all we behold the cross, shining, as the legend says 
Constantine saw it, symbol that God by the advent of Christ 
has taken up humanity into his infinite arms. We gaze upon 
it, and realize as never before that here we behold the mighty 
cause and the glorious result, and are impressed with the 
truth that, as all good that has been taught converges through 
the coming of Christ into the cross, so out of it diverge 
infinite lines along which forever flow blessedness and power 
and glorious hope to mankind. And we will tell this truth to 
man, and we will help this light to shine forth into the dark- 
ness, counting ourselves favored that we have such a place, 
and that we can use such a power. And for our reward, 
looking down the future, we can behold the cross, and upon 
it, superscribed not in three tongues but in all the languages 
of the earth, in letters of light that can be read by us all, 
" This is the King of the world." 



II. 

THE SON OF MAN ; OR, CHRIST'S HUMANITY IN 
ITS RELATION TO US. 

[Preached, Rockville, August 23, 1874.] 



Matt. 26 : 63, 64. — And the High Priest answered and said unto 
him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou 
be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast 
said : Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of 
man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of 
heaven. 

I have selected this portion of scripture because there is, 
conjoined here by Jesus himself, the two titles by which he 
identifies himself both with the divine and with the hu- 
man nature, confessing himself to be Son of God, and yet 
taking care to assert at the same time that he is the Son of 
Man. 

I present this not for the purpose of proving the Divinity 
of our Lord, but to make more prominent his humanity in 
its relations to us. 

I. The use of the phrase Son of Man in Scripture is 
very^ significant. 

This may be especially noted by comparing the manner 
in which it is employed in Ezekiel and in the Gospels. In 
the former it is the term applied by the Spirit of God to the 
prophet on occasion of his wonderful visions. It is never 
given by the prophet to himself. Its object seems to be to 
keep him constantly in mind of his frailty as man, " lest like 
Paul he should be exalted above measure by the abundance 
of the revelations given unto him." In reference to our 
Lord, however, the phrase is never employed except by him- 
self, until after his ascension — when it is used by Stephen 
and by John in the Revelation to denote the glorified and 
triumphant Man Christ Jesus. 



66 

More than sixty times, as recorded in the Gospels, did our 
Lord speak of himself by this appellation. s It is, if I may 
say so, his favorite name. 

Surely, this is not without its deep meaning, — which let 
us seek to discover. 

I think we find a double significance in this remarkable 
use of those words. 

i. Christ wished always to impress upon his disciples the 
fact that he was a man, having all things in common with 
man. While he was performing his wonderful works, which 
in themselves proclaim him divine, while there were heard 
voices from heaven calling him the beloved Son of the Heav- 
enly Father, while some were witnesses of that glorious 
transfiguration which made his human form seem like a 
shade in the midst of the divine splendor, while the time was 
coming when that form which had moved among them was 
to be taken up out of their sight into the clouds of heaven, 
the disciples needed to be reminded that the Wonderful who 
had appeared was human as well as divine. 

Accordingly, we find that it was after the Transfiguration 
that Jesus took his disciples apart, and told them that the 
Son of Man, the very one who had just been glorified and 
anointed, as it were, with the Holy radiance as the Son of 
God, — was he whom they had seen as divine, but must know 
as human, who should be delivered up to the Scribes and 
Pharisees, and be put to a shameful death. 

It was when Peter was to make the remarkable confession 
upon which the church should be founded, that Jesus was 
the Messiah, the Son of God, that the question was put in a 
form to unite the humanity in the same sentence with the 
confession of the divinity, — " Whom say ye that I, the Son 
of Man, am ?" When he was on trial, after the admission to 
the High Priest that he was the Son of God, he seemed to 
be unwilling to let the occasion pass of avowing himself the 
Son of Man. It was the man Christ Jesus who was to appear 
in the clouds of heaven, in glory. 

Perhaps we, in modern times, find no difficulty in compre- 
hending and receiving the fact that Jesus was a man. The 



6 7 

difficulty seems to be in comprehending the divinity. But 
with the early disciples it was not so. We find whole sects 
denying the true humanity of Jesus. This was the earliest 
heresy. The Docetae and the Gnostics believed that the 
body of Christ was only an apparent body, that his suffer- 
ings, his death, and resurrection were not real. God took a 
form, but the form was all. The appearance was a delusion. 

To men inclined thus to dispute the evidence of their 
senses, which testified of Jesus as increasing in wisdom and 
stature, and as eating, sleeping, weeping, suffering, and dying, 
it was of moment to have our Lord's own words to quote and 
to be reminded that He delighted to call himself the Son of 
Man. 

2. But there is in this phrase, Son of Man, a deeper 
meaning which Jesus meant to convey to his disciples, than 
simply this, that he was in all respects a man. He was the 
Son of Man — not a son of a man— but the Son of Man. 
Two precious truths lie hidden here. 

(a.) He was the representative man. All humanity found 
its epitome in Him. Born in Judea, he w r as not a Jew. 
Child of the East, yet there was nothing oriental in him. It 
is of not small significance that Luke traces his genealogy 
not to David, not to Abraham, but to Adam. Jew and Gen- 
tile meet in him. The descendants of Shem, of Ham, and 
of Japhet find anew a central point in him. All other men 
have been national, provincial, having race characteristics, 
class characteristics, family peculiarities, individual peculiari- 
ties. But Jesus was simply human ; what belonged to univer- 
sal human nature as it came from the idea of the Creator he 
possessed, but nothing local, nothing partial. Brought up in 
Nazareth, yet was there no mark of the obscure country vil- 
lage in his character. His sympathies were world-wide, he 
had no prejudices, no narrow, distorted views of other people 
than his own. 

Whoever reads the life of Jesus is struck with wonder at 
this fact, — the Roman, the Samaritan, the Syrophaenician, 
the " nations of the earth" are all spoken of and treated with 
the same tenderness, the same far-reaching love, the same 



68 

wise comprehension of what they were and needed, as his 
own countrymen. 

Emerson and others have written of representative men, 
selecting those great poets, orators, statesmen, and warriors 
who stand so high above all others that they may be consi- 
dered the chosen ones of their class, embodying all the excel- 
lences and splendor of the lesser lights. So Shakespeare 
and Goethe stand for what is supreme in poetry, Demosthenes 
and Cicero for what is highest in oratory, Napoleon and 
Alexander sum up in themselves the glory of the warrior. 
So one man sometimes seems to combine the highest charac- 
teristics of a race and to present in his own person all its 
most peculiar qualities. So Abraham and Moses as repre- 
sentatives for the Jewish nation, Plato for the Greeks, Shakes- 
peare and Bacon for the English, Voltaire for the French. 
They are the men in whom the nation takes most pride as 
presenting a reflection of what they most admire in themselves. 

But, if we should try, we could not think what class or 
nation could find most of itself in Jesus. And yet all, even 
those who deny His divinity, acknowledge Him to be a man 
above all others. Whatever there was in man was not 
foreign to Him. This we may say of Him in an infinitely 
higher sense than the Roman poet said it of himself. 

He had the wisdom and foresight to plan and to subdue and 
triumph which great warriors and statesmen have ; he had 
that love of the beautiful, and that insight into truth which 
makes illustrious poets and philosophers ; he exhibited that 
sway over men's minds and hearts, and that deep, sure pene- 
tration into their motives which have given the greatest 
orators and leaders their power to move men. 

He mingled with the most learned and the wisest men of 
His time, and they acknowledged him as their equal, even in 
His early youth ; He went among the ignorant and the 
wretched, and they met with no patronizing condescension, 
no arrogance of superiority which would thrust them from 
Him. 

In His poverty, he stood among the rich, meeting them in 
His simple humanity, without flattery or obsequiousness, 



69 

telling them just the truths which they needed to hear, at the 
same time He made the poor to feel that they had a near 
friend in Him, and that they might come freely to Him and 
meet with no proud rebuff. Even the lowest and the vilest 
were persuaded that they had a point of contact in Him. 

Speaking of His mind and soul and heart, we might say 
that as the sum of humanity was comprehended in Him, He 
had all most excellent traits of both male and female. There 
was no mark of masculine strength, nobility nor dignity 
wanting in Him on the one hand : and on the other no trace 
of feminine gentleness and tenderness and love ever seen 
in the most womanly woman but was found in Him. 

(b.) But our phrase means also that he was the perfect man, 
the symmetrical man, the complete man. 

All other men, even the greatest, have been fragmentary, 
as well as imperfect. When the great sculptors wish to 
form the ideal figure, they can never find any one man or 
woman who can sit as a model. They are obliged to take 
this feature from one, that from another, and combine perhaps 
a score to form the one ideal. And when the poet or the 
novelist strive to portray their ideal hero, they are likewise 
obliged to borrow qualities of mind and heart and soul from 
the purest and best, with which to endow their imaginary 
perfect man or woman, and always with a consciousness that 
the character portrayed is unsatisfactory to themselves and 
others. And so we must select the highest characteristic we 
know from one, a different one from another, and so on until 
we have gathered as widely-varied and surpassingly glorious 
a group of excellences as we are able to find in the best 
humanity we know, and then we shall fail in representing to 
ourselves the perfection of Jesus. 

No one of the greatest painters has ever succeeded in 
producing a satisfactory picture of our Lord. They all fall 
below our conception of the character which moves before us 
in the simple, natural history of the Gospels. 

If you will analyze for a moment the highest and best of all 
those whom you know, either through reading or by personal 
acquaintance, you will speedily acknowledge that the most 



70 

perfect of human characters lack immensely Jn completeness 
as well as in perfection. 

All historic characters are full of such incongruities and 
contradictions. The vast majority of lives are common- 
place, reaching to no great height of virtue or piety or genius. 
There is no approach to perfection. But occasionally it 
seems as if Nature made an attempt to produce a model man, 
and then we are forced to see how vain is the effort, how 
nature's mightiest productions are in some respects failures, 
one-sided, fragmentary, incomplete. 

The world-moving eloquence of Demosthenes was mingled 
with practical folly ; that of Cicero with vanity and coward- 
ice ; the far-reaching wisdom of our Bacon did not prevent 
his treachery to his friend, his baseness to his country : the 
mighty genius of a Shakspeare or a Goethe was debased by 
the lusts of the flesh ; the marvelous mental powers of a 
Napoleon were overshadowed by his almost incredible 
meanness and cruelty. The very strength of a man in one 
direction seems almost to necessitate a corresponding weak- 
ness in another in nature's best products, as in the fruits of 
California, in which enormous size is counter-balanced by 
inferior quality. 

Even when Nature has given intellectual greatness and a 
soul which the spirit of God could fill with the most beauti- 
ful graces, it happens as in the case of St. Paul and Socrates, 
that she must needs put such souls and minds in miserable 
bodies. 

In some way, she tells the tale over and over that our 
humanity is in ruins, and that out of these ruins here, there 
can be only an imperfect, incomplete structure. Our earthly 
heroes fall, some of them so grievously — and what we thought 
beautiful and symmetrical, upon closer inspection shows 
grievous flaws and woful inconsistencies. 

But we look up at the height of Jesus of Nazareth, and we 
behold at length one who towers above all these sons of 
earth, and in the grand proportions of His humanity we can 
discover no defect. The genius or the fame of other men has 
only served to call closer attention to the fatal deficiencies of 



their natures, but as the name of Jesus is spread wider and 
wider over the earth, and as the generations of men, one 
after another, scan more and more narrowly each lineament of 
His character, His wide-spread and lasting fame only brings 
out more conspicuously the complete perfection of His person. 
We call Shakespeare and Goethe many-sided. Jesus is all- 
sided. In mind and soul and heart and in body (if we may be- 
lieve tradition) there can be found no defect, no feature or 
quality wanting to make up the perfect man. If we can 
think of anything grand, of anything noble, of anything 
beautiful, of anything good which belongs to human nature, 
examine closely the character of Christ and you will find it 
there. As says another, " the patience of Job, the faith of 
Abraham, the persistency of Jacob, the royal humility of 
David, the boldness and faithfulness of Elijah, the trust and 
fearlessness of Daniel, the love of John, the zeal of Peter, 
the devotion of Paul, all are concentrated in the Son of Man!' 
All the active, aggressive, energetic, and heroic virtues of 
man ; all the sweet, gentle, loving, beautiful and meek graces 
of woman ; all the docile, trustful, hopeful, and obedient 
spirit of the little child ; all and more than these virtues met 
in Him, and without any of the excesses or the defects with 
which they are accompanied in other men ; each so complete 
in itself, each so harmonious with all the others, that there 
was no note of discord in all his humanity ! 

Yet we feel that this perfection was entirely human, there 
was nothing there which does not belong to a finished human- 
ity. He is not so superhumanly great, so lifted above our 
conceptions of what man ought to be, as to put him alto- 
gether out of our reach. He was no mystical demi-god, ccming 
to earth to cast consternation among men by superhuman 
valor or feats of strength, doing some great deed and then 
returning to heaven. He was a man among men, in all 
things, made like unto us. 

II. I come to speak of the value and importance of this 
perfect humanity to us. 

There has been a great deal of argument expended to 
prove the Divinity of Christ. I think it abundantly proven 



72 

by the narrative of His life. But, though we do not take so 
much pains to certify Christ's humanity to us, yet I think 
that we need this truth more than the other. When once 
we have granted the divine nature, then it is absolutely in- 
dispensable for our spiritual hope and trust, for our salvation, 
that we take to our hearts the fact that a perfect man has 
lived. As Mr. Robertson says, " if there has been on this 
earth no real, perfect human life, no love that never cooled, 
no faith that never failed, which may shine as a lodestar 
across the darkness of our experience, a light amidst all con- 
victions of our own meanness and all suspicions of others' 
littleness, — why, we may have a religion, but we have not a 
Christianity. For if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot 
feel Him as a Saviour." 

i. We need Him in the first place, to know the possibility 
of a union between the human and the divine. How can 
we have a sure confidence of such a glorious result of our 
lives as that we may shed the weak and sinful elements of the 
human, and put on the holiness and perfection of the divine, 
unless we may see one like unto us in all things, and yet filled 
with the divine spirit without measure. We know what we 
are ; erring, sinning, weak, easily brought under the dominion 
of evil spirits, influenced at times, to be sure, by the power 
of goodness, but having no continuance therein. 

Men have seemed to grasp something of the divine nature ; 
have been conscious that there was at least a spark of divin- 
ity within, but studying the whole history of the race, we 
should never arrive at the certainty, that our poor humanity 
could be wholly or perpetually joined to the divine, so that it 
be altogether in harmony with it. 

But the Man of Nazareth, the Son of God, born of woman, 
has taken this same poor, weak humanity, that has seemed 
so far off from divinity, and has baptized it into the divine. 
He has brought the material wholly into subordination to the 
spiritual. He has shown us that there can be completest har- 
mony in such a subordination ; that only thus indeed does man 
come into his normal condition. When we see what such a 
union brings, what power, what grace, what beauty, what joy 



73 

and content, what elevation and dignity, then are we first 
convinced that we have found what our nature is and what 
the true design and end of our humanity. So Christ's hu- 
manity interprets to us the meaning of our own humanity. 

2. It also interprets to us divinity, reveals to us the- 
Godhead. 

For this too, it was necessary that there should be a per- 
fect and complete man, who could grasp deity by reason of 
the fullness of manhood. Our weak and sinful natures can- 
not comprehend God. Sin puts a thick mist between our 
Maker and the spirit within, which alone could apprehend 
spirit. But when there comes a sinless one, there is nothing 
to intercept the clear light of heaven, and his soul pierces 
into all the mysteries of the Divine Nature. And because 
He had the same mind and heart with the children of men, 
what he discovered in the divine regions, he could declare 
unto them in such terms that they might apprehend. 

Just as to translate one language into another, it is neces- 
sary for the translator to understand both, so was it neces- 
sary that the Godhead itself should put on humanity that he 
might be interpreted and understood by men. 

Or we may find the necessity better illustrated in this way. 
There have arisen some great thinkers like Plato among the 
ancients and Spinoza among the moderns, who failed entirely 
of being understood by their cotemporaries. Their thoughts 
have been too profound or too high for men to grasp. But 
after a time, one after another arises who is capable of grasp- 
ing the subtle meaning of the thinker, and is at the same 
time so in sympathy with the popular mind, that he can clearly 
interpret to its comprehension the vastness and the depth 
which before it could not grasp. So actually do the 
thoughts of great men become common property. There 
are mediators between the high and low, in the kingdom of 
thought. 

This is a poor analogy, indeed, of the manner in which 

Christ is a mediator between God and man, in the kingdom 

of heaven. He has brought down high things to the level of 

our human capacity. He has unfolded that which was in- 

10 



74 

comprehensible to our intellects, so that our hearts and souls 
now grasp it. He has made the perfection of the infinite to 
stand out to human gaze. He has enfolded humanity in the 
arms of divinity and shed upon it the divine light and made 
it henceforth to look up and see the wondrous things of the 
heavenly and the eternal. 

3. Jesus by his perfect humanity has shown us the capa- 
bilities which lie within our common humanity; latent in- 
deed, but, as he brought it into contact with the Divine 
Spirit, coming forth into wondrous activity and glorious 
strength. 

Such a view sheds a marvelous light upon the mighty 
works of Jesus and the perfect life which he lived. 

For we must always bear in mind that it was not as God, 
but as the divine man, that our Lord performed his miracles, 
revealed to us His Father, rose from the dead, and ascended 
into heaven. 

That God should calm the tempest, heal diseases, and raise 
the dead to life is nothing wonderful, and has the meaning to 
us of only ordinary Providence ; for does not the Almighty 
continually work through his laws to give life and health, and 
to control the elements. The marvel is that our frail human- 
ity could become so gifted, so filled with divine influences, 
as to come to possess divine authority and power. The 
marvel is, that our humanity, so overborne by the material, 
so crushed by the earthly, should once have risen and so 
completely disenthralled it of all the bonds and shackles of 
the flesh, and have asserted once for all, that even in the 
hitherto slave, there was resting a might which could con- 
quer all things earthly and base. In Eastern tales is told the 
story that once a fisherman found a little sealed vase by the 
seaside. He removed the seal and opened it, and slowly 
there rose before his astonished eyes a huge mass of vapor, 
which rose to a great height, and gradually assumed the form of 
a gigantic man. The good genius thanked the fisherman for 
releasing him from his long imprisonment and promised to 
perform for him whatever he should ask, however wonderful. 
So our human nature, long confined and cribbed in narrow 



75 

bounds by the devil, at length found a liberator, and was 
henceforth able to achieve what had been impossibilities. 

For we are certainly taught, by the completeness of the 
human nature of Christ, that what he did, is an index of the 
capabilities which lie enwrapped in our humanity. 

In no imputed or fictitious sense, was his perfect obedi- 
ence our obedience, his righteousness our righteousness, for 
it was the obedience and righteousness of our weak, tempted, 
hitherto fallen nature. 

Such a nature as we have, .when we have stripped off the 
corruptions which enslave it, and will not let its powers be 
used, that nature, not gigantic, or abnormal, was able wholly 
to do the will of God, and hence to assert a grand superiority 
over self and the world. 

Once it has been free, it has put forth its unlimited powers 
and has triumphed. Therefore it may again. Do I mean to 
say that men may again arise to heal the sick, control the 
tempests, raise the dead to life, if they put their humanity 
under the same conditions that it was in Jesus of Nazareth ? 

Did not the apostles do the same works which Christ did, 
and have we not his promise, — " Greater works than these 
shall ye do ? " 

And therefore we have reason to believe that as conditions 
become the same in us as in Jesus, the same supremacy over 
the lower nature will be made manifest. The conditions are 
outward as well as inward, to be sure, and the outer circum- 
stances may not allow the same manifestations of the power 
within us as within Him, but as the nature within us is 
purged from its grossness, as it resumes its spiritual vitality, 
as it takes on the divine proportions which Christ has shown 
belong to it, there shall be evident the same unbounded su- 
premacy of the spiritual over the material nature, manifesting 
itself however, according to necessity and the demands of 
goodness. 

So we see in Christ's calming the raging sea, not alone a 
mark of his divinity, not simply an attestation of his mission 
and a sign of the truth of his doctrine. 

It is a fact then, whose import reaches out to us to-day, tell- 



7& 

ing us that to our nature will come the same grand power to 
control material nature, if we will stand out as Jesus did in 
the plenitude of the spirit. It may not be in this form that 
it shall best manifest its supremacy, it may be only in the 
conquest of natural appetites and passions, but. in the best 
way, its might shall be shown ill proportion as it has resumed 
its true purified humanity. It was not Jesus alone, as one 
that conquered death, not Jesus as the embodied God-head, 
that rose from the grave, but humanity centered in that per- 
son ; humanity so long entombed, had burst from the dreary 
confines, and was made alive, — a second time man becoming 
a living soul. Our Nature has ascended up on high, has be- 
come glorified, has taken the throne at the right hand of Him 
who has been made evermore Our Father, because Jesus, the 
first fruits, is our Brother. And we, if we be buried with 
Him, (if the old humanity be sloughed off with its corrup- 
tions,) shall also rise with Him. We shall put on the new, 
glorious, spiritualized humanity, which shall have all suprem- 
acy over the whole lower nature. 

And if he lives, we shall live also ; we that have our hu- 
manity, as his was, made alive through the Divine. 

Finally, because Christ's humanity was our humanity 
complete, we must believe that he stood for us not only in 
the original mightiness and purity of our natures, but in its 
suffering, its misery, and its burdens. This truth is precious 
to us in two ways, (a.) He has shown that sorrowing, heav- 
ily-laden humanity may have a refuge where it shall find rest, 
and that our nature finding peace and purity amid direct suf- 
fering shall rise from it to the most glorious heights, (b) 
His suffering humanity, because it was so united to the 
divine, has forever brought us into closest sympathy with the 
Infinite Father. Our nature may be as one with Christ, by 
this union with Him ; we are made one with God. 

So on the wings of our griefs are we borne up into the 
presence of the Most High. Through Jesus, inasmuch as 
he has been made perfect through suffering, we are taken 
into the very heart of God, so that all our sighs and breath- 
ings of pain and woe come up into flis remembrance. Be- 



77 

cause by this infinite-reaching sympathy of our Mediator and 
Redeemer our religion is a most human religion. There is 
nothing of true humanity but may touch it, no gleam of it 
so buried in sin, but that Jesus' love may reach it. Where- 
soever it be, howsoever despised that which conceals it, this 
sympathizing humanity of Jesus will find it, will rescue it, 
will put on it new robes, will give it back its lost powers, its 
lost possessions, its lost glory. 

This humanity of His identifies itself with all, the lowest 
as well as the highest, the poorest, and the most forsaken 
and despised. 

" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye did it unto me." 

Such a common humanity with all must we also recognize, 
before the perfected nature which the Captain of our Salva- 
tion has wrought out for us, shall become wholly ours, and 
we rejoice in its completeness and in its glory. 



III. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

[Preached, Rockville, June 2, 1878.] 



Matt, vi, 9-14. — "After this manner therefore pray ye : Our Father 
which art in heaven," etc. 

In returning to the Sermon on the Mount, we find that we 
have come to the Lord's Prayer. In studying it, the wonderful 
depth and breadth of meaning in it have caused me to feel 
that each clause, nay, almost every word, demanded our close 
and reverent consideration. But my plan necessitates that 
our attention should be fixed at present only on the general 
outline, the form and method of the prayer, as teaching us 
how to pray. 

After having warned his disciples against ostentation and 
tedious repetition in prayer, our Lord gave them this as a 
model for all future use. We always call this the Lord's 
Prayer, but it would more properly be designated the Disci- 
ples' Prayer, as it is that which they are to use. Our Lord's 
own prayer is in the 17th of John. 

Our Lord evidently did not intend to confine his disciples 
to the very form and words of this prayer as a perpetual 
liturgy. "After this manner therefore pray ye." All our 
prayers, like this prayer, are to be humble, sincere, reverent, 
concise, and simple. But though this prayer is plainly not 
designed to limit us to set, prepared forms, yet all branches 
of the Christian church, Greek, Catholic, and Protestant, have 
agreed in their employment of it as one form by which to 
approach our common Father. And if we could all seize 
rightly the whole meaning of it as we repeat it, if the spirit of 
it could enter our souls and abide there, then might we see 



79 

eye to eye, divisions and enmities be healed, and the church 
be one in Him who has taught us how to pray, — if we would 
only learn ! It is said that while many different beliefs have 
wrangled over every other important part of Scripture, as to 
this prayer, all are agreed to receive it as the completest 
model, and as that which every child of God could send up 
to heaven. 

Spiritually-minded men, and all of keen perception of 
order and beauty and appropriateness, must agree with 
Luther, when he says : — " It is the very best prayer that 
ever came into the world, or was ever invented by man, 
because God the Father has given it through His Son, putting 
it into His mouth ; we cannot doubt, therefore, that of all 
others it pleases Him best." 

We run over this prayer very often ; we know it all, we 
think; whereas, we know very little of it. When we medi- 
tate upon it, study it, strive to comprehend it, really to pray 
it, then we begin to marvel at its simplicity, its comprehen- 
siveness, its far-reaching meanings. We ordinarily do not 
pray it, when we repeat it, nor enter far into its spirit or 
matter. Says F. D Maurice : — " The Pater Noster is not, as 
some fancy, the easiest, most natural, of all devout utter- 
ances. It may be committed to memory quickly, but it is 
slowly learnt by heart. Men may repeat it over ten times in 
an hour, but to use it when it is most needed, to know what 
it means, to believe it, yea, not to contradict it in the very 
act of praying it, not to construct our prayers upon a model 
the most unlike it possible, this is hard ; this is one of the 
highest gifts which God can bestow upon us." We do not 
find out what there is in it until we are raised up to where it 
is. Until we have had breathed into us quite other feelings 
from what we naturally have toward our fellow-men, we can- 
not really pray the very first word of it. 

Says Mr. Beecher : " I used to think the Lord's prayer a 
short prayer ; but, as I live longer and see more of life, I 
begin to believe that there is no such thing as getting through 
it. If a man, in praying it, were to stop at every word until 
he had thoroughly comprehended and prayed it, his life-time 



8o 

would be consumed. 'Our Father' — there would be a wall 
one hundred feet high in just these two words to most men. 
1 Thy will be done' — you say to yourself, Oh, I can pray that ; 
and all the time your mind goes round and round in immense 
circuits and far-off distances ; but God is continually bringing 
the circuits nearer to you, till He says, How is it about your 
pride and your temper? How is it about your business and 
daily life ? This is a revolutionary petition. It would make 
many a man's shop and store tumble to the ground to utter it. 
Who can stand at the avenue along which all his pleasant 
thoughts and wishes are blossoming like flowers, and send 
those terrible words, 'Thy will be done,' crashing through it? 
I think it is the most fearful prayer to pray in the world." 

Fearful, I would say, only when one cannot pray it all 
with the whole heart and spirit ; but when one can say with 
all sincerity and comprehension, " Our Father" then can he 
also say without fear, " Thy will be done!' 

One reason why we do not realize the power and scope of 
this prayer is because of its commonness — our familiarity 
with it. There are many things all around us full of wonder 
and mystery, which yet are empty to us because familiarity 
blinds us. We are like the New Hampshire farmer, who 
thought the White Mountains looked pretty well, but he could 
have improved them by making them a little more peaked. 
And so the sublimity and grandeur of the Alps are lost upon 
the natives, who see in them only a means of bringing money 
to them. But if we will indeed look into these common, 
familiar things, we shall discover that the finger of the 
Almighty and All-wise has been there. 

And so, if we will ponder this Lord's Prayer, reverently, 
and with true inquiring spirit look into it, w T e shall begin to 
apprehend the sublimity and breadth of meaning wrapped up 
in its simple words. 

Our Lord gave us this prayer, not that we should pray no 
other, but to teach what our prayer should always be. "After 
this manner;" and therefore, says Mr. Maurice, "any manner 
but this is a wrong manner ; a prayer which has any other 
principle or method than this, is not the Soul's Prayer," is 



not a right kind of prayer. Let us then look at these two 
things : the method and principle of prayer, as taught us 
here. We are to examine the form and the contents. 

Note some of the qualities which inhere in it. It is simple ; 
can you imagine a prayer more so ? Every child can pray it. 
It is comprehensive and far-reaching. Can you name any 
essential thing left out ? If any child can pray it, there is 
also all here which all men need to pray. The wisest may 
live long and not exhaust it. 

It is direct — every word tells, there is nothing superfluous. 

It has every element of sincerity and fervency in it. If 
one has at all grasped the significance of its words, he feels 
that they carry him direct to the Almighty and take with 
them all his most urgent needs and his highest aspirations. 

It has been said, " this prayer embodies a catholic spirit, 
developed in Our Father ; a reverential spirit, in Hallowed be 
thy name; a missionary spirit, in Thy kingdom come; an 
obedient spirit, in Thy will by done ; a dependent spirit, in 
Give us this day our daily bread ; a penitent and forgiving 
spirit, in Forgive as we forgive ; a cautions spirit, in Lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil ; an adoring 
spirit, in its sublime ascription, Thine is the kingdom, the 
power, and the glory, forever. Amen." 

Now, look again at the great and sublime truths recog- 
nized and taught by this simple prayer, truths some of them, 
never fully acknowledged before ; for, I believe you may 
search the Old Testament through, without finding the Our 
Father used as Jesus has taught His disciples to use it. 

How that first word, Our, demolishes all distinctions of 
class, race, nation, how it stamps out of sight our prejudices, 
sectarianisms, jealousies, prides, envyings, hatreds ; how, if 
all could but go so far, the very utterance of it with sincere 
heart would bring us all into a common and universal 
Brotherhood, hushing ail strife and war into beautiful har- 
monious unity. 

Our Father ! When shall the world be able to say that ? 
The second word, Father ; have you not felt how much more 
that means, than God, Creator, Lord, than any other name 
ii 



82 

by which we know the Eternal ! When we pray, we are 
brought by this name right into the very presence of One, 
kind, loving, careful of His creatures, One whom we can 
approach confidently, trustingly : before whom we may bring 
all our heart's desires, sure that He will listen. 

Oh, that we could all speak to Him, believing from our 
very hearts that He is our Father ! How it would heal our griefs, 
strengthen our souls, and bring out the best affections of our 
hearts. 

And how that one little word — Father, — sweeps away all 
the man-made theories concerning this universe, its creation, 
its government and its end ; " Atheism, which says there is 
no God ; and Pantheism, which denies His Personality ; and 
Positivism, which at best ignores His existence ; and Epicu- 
rianism, which teaches that God has no care for his creatures ; 
and Polytheism, which affirms that there are many Gods." 

See, how one little word of divine truth, breathed forth 
from an honest heart, dissipates a whole gigantic army of 
errors, and drives them back to their native hell, as the vapor 
steals away before the bright sunlight. 

Let us pass on. 

" Who art in Heaven!' 

Art- — not wast in the ages when creation began, and re- 
moved from the reach of His creatures, as some of the advo- 
cates of evolution would tell us, but ever existent, ever present 
where He can be spoken to, where He can hear. 

Art, not is to come at the end of the world, at judgment, 
but governing, judging, caring for us all now. In Heaven 
does not contradict this. If for a moment the thought of 
Heaven as His dwelling-place seems to send Him far away 
into Unseen regions, then instantly comes the echo of that 
we have just repeated. Our Father to re-assure us. And 
forthwith these two truths are welded — Our Father is in 
Heaven, then if we are indeed children and Heaven is our 
Father's home, it is our home too, God is not taken from us, 
but we are lifted upward towards His eternal habitation, and 
have the vision ever before us of an everlasting, abiding, and 
resting place for ourselves. 



83 

Immortality ! at home with our Father and the rest of His 
children in never-ending blessedness ! This is the next 
truth which bursts upon us. 

And now we cannot stop to examine each of the deep, won- 
derful truths which would become evident to us, if we were 
indeed learning the Lord's Prayer for the first time. We will 
stop for two or three only. " Thy will be done," as in heaven 
so in earth. See Our Father here active, working with forces 
seen and unseen to bring about His mighty plans — see all 
the heavenly hosts, sun, moon, and stars moving in strict 
orderly obedience to His will ; look beyond the visible 
heavens, and behold the angelic bands, each in its sphere 
with all their energies executing, gladly, with praises and 
hallelujahs, the same will ; co let it be on earth, so should we 
do, so shall it be done sometime, because Our Lord has 
taught us to pray for it. 

As we pray, let us strive to grasp this high, far-reaching 
significance of the words, — that the will of God is not merely 
to be suffered, endured, but to be done, by ourselves, and at 
length by all. 

" Thy kingdom come," — what a panorama opens out before 
us at these words, — a beautiful, peaceful, blessed scene, if we 
would pause to meditate upon it, — and all the beauty and 
blessedness shall come to be realized, here, on this earth, for 
Our Lord taught us to pray for it. His kingdom will make 
to be a fact, the most fervent wishes, the most eager hopes 
that mankind have ever held. 

Passing along, hastily as we must, through the prayer, yet 
meditating upon the truths which beam out as thickly as the 
stars in a clear moonless night, we note these blazing facts — 
that we, dependent upon God every day, may trust Him 
daily to supply our wants, that we are to ask for the day, not 
the morrow, casting away anxiety on account of that, — then 
that our sins may be all forgiven, redemption free, purchased 
for us by a Redeemer, but contingent upon our possessing the 
Christly forgiving spirit ourselves, — that in the midst of 
a world of trial and temptation we may have restraining 
grace, and firm deliverance at length from all evil, — ^suffering 



8 4 

and sin, sorrow and wickedness, from death and hell. All 
these things may we have, because (and note well the reason), 
the kingdom and the power belong unto Our Father, and He 
will guide us and direct all things, to bring to pass what 
under His teaching we ask for, that His glory may fill earth 
and heaven. 

These things constitute the matter of the prayer ; mark 
them well, meditate upon them, for these are the objects, 
undoubtedly, which we may ask for always with assured ex- 
pectation that they will be granted. 

But we must not stop here, if we would learn how to pray. 
We must know not only the matter, but iheform, the order 
of our praying. Our Lord meant to teach us, no doubt, how 
to order our petitions, which to put first, and which last. 

" After this manner, therefore, pray ye." How would you 
naturally begin a prayer ? What petition would first rush to 
your lips, if you should ask for what you most desired ? 
Would it be that God's name might be hallowed, that His 
kingdom might come, or that you might have your daily 
bread' or your sins forgiven? But, as Mr. Maurice says, 
" the principle of a prayer which asks first for bread or for- 
giveness, must be wholly different from the principle of 
one which begins with ' Hallowed be thy Name.' The con- 
ceptions of prayer which you would derive from them are 
unlike, nay, they are opposed." 

We must look at the method, as well as the matter of 
our praying, if we would learn Christ's lesson. 

That our prayer may be heart-prayer, that we may come 
to the other petition in the right spirit, we must first say 
" Our Father." We must take the filial relation, get within 
us the sense of dependence and then of trust in a loving 
parent, before we can rightly pray for our daily bread, for 
forgiveness of sins. 

It will do no good to come asking for these things until we 
come with the spirit which can say, Abba, Father, which 
loves first of all to Hallow His Name, and desires above all 
that His Kingdom shall come, and that His Will shall be 
everywhere done. Did not Christ mean this, by putting 
these first ? 



The profoundest students of this prayer have noted this 
significance in the order of the petitions, and observed a pro- 
gress and orderly growth from the beginning to the end. 

We ascend up to God on the wings of our prayer, and 
lose ourselves in Him, then only can we rightly contemplate 
ourselves and our own wants. There are three petitions you 
notice concerning God and the spiritual realm. Hallowed 
be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. 

There are three concerning ourselves — daily bread, forgive- 
ness, spiritual deliverance. The first three have a necessary 
order; the Hallowing of God's Name is the basis upon which 
His Kingdom must be established ; and it is in the sphere of 
this Kingdom alone that the will of God is fulfilled. You 
perceive here one petition grows out of the other and is 
connected to it by a vital stem. In like manner the prayer 
for the maintenance of life must precede the prayer for the 
forgiveness of sins, and it is only when the sins of the past 
are removed that we can go forward to plead for deliverance 
from the temptations and evils of the future. Do we not see 
that this order is necessary, that it must not be transgressed 
in the spirit and principle of our prayers, if we would rightly 
pray to God's acceptance ? that not only the symmetry of 
the prayer, its right proportion, but the very essence of the 
prayer would be changed, were we to change these petitions 
in their order of sequence ? Let me quote Mr. Maurice 
again : " Say first, Our Father. This relation is fixed, estab- 
lished, certain. It existed in Christ before all worlds ; it was 
manifested when he came in the flesh. He ascended on 
high that we may claim it. Let us be certain that we ground 
all our thoughts upon these opening words ; till we know 
them well by heart, do not let us hasten to the rest. Let us 
go on carefully, step by step, to the Name, the Kingdom, 
the Will, assuring ourselves of our footing, confident that 
we are in a region of clear, unmixed goodness ; of goodness 
which is to be hallowed by us, which has come and shall come 
to us and in us, which is to be done on earth, not merely in 
heaven. Then we are in a condition to make these petitions 
for our daily bread, for our own wants, which we are ordina- 



86 

rily in such haste to utter, and which He, in whom all wisdom 
dwells, commands us to defer. Last of all comes this : De- 
liver us from evil." 

My friends, if we will learn by the study of this model of 
prayer, in what manner, with what spirit we should appear 
before the Lord of Hosts, if we should come to realize and to 
feel the deep, solemn meaning, the wonderful beauty and the 
far-reaching grasp of this prayer, I think we should say that 
we never have yet fully prayed these few short petitions. It 
is a great thing to know this prayer. Of the great power it 
has to move the universal heart, the following incident is 
related and vouched for as a fact : 

A gentleman of Baltimore once invited the elder Booth, 
the great tragedian, to dine with him. It was in his palmy 
days, when his genius and his powers had not been marred 
by dissipation. After dinner, the old gentleman requested 
Booth as a special favor to repeat the Lord's Prayer, 
before the assembled company. Slowly and reverently he 
arose, and became pale, while tears came to his upturned 
eyes. The silence was profound, almost painful ; until at 
last the spell was broken, as if by an electric shock, as his 
rich-toned voice from white lips, syllabled forth, " Our Father 
which art in heaven," with a pathos and fervid solemnity 
which thrilled all hearts. He finished ; the silence continued, 
not a voice, was heard from the rapt audience, until from the 
corner of the room a subdued sob broke the silence ; and the 
old gentleman tottered forward with streaming eyes, and, seiz- 
ing Booth by the hand, in tremulous accents exclaimed, " Sir, 
you have afforded me a pleasure for which my whole future life 
will be grateful. I am an old man and have repeated that 
prayer every day since my boyhood, but I never heard it 
before — never." " You are right," responded Booth ; " to 
read that prayer as it should be read has cost me the severest 
study and labor for forty years ; and I am far from being 
satisfied with my rendering of that wonderful production. 
Hardly one in ten thousand comprehends how much beauty, 
tenderness, and grandeur can be condensed in space so small 
and in words so simple. That prayer of itself illustrates the 
truth of the Bible, and stamps upon it the seal of divinity." 



87 

Yes, it is a divine prayer ; and is it not worth our most 
reverent and faithful study, that we may learn from it how to 
pray ? that, catching the spirit of it, we may be brought into 
real communion with Our Father and live in His Kingdom 
and be found doing His will, that we may be daily kept by 
His upholding hand and having our sins forgiven, .we may at 
length be delivered from all the trials and evil of the world. 
And, imperfectly as it is comprehended, to how many millions 
has this prayer brought light from heaven and relief to the 
pent up and burdened soul ? It has been offered by the 
young and old, by the wise and the ignorant, by those in 
Christian and in heathen climes. There can be no time, no 
occasion but its petitions will be opportune. From the dun- 
geon, from the palace, from the abode of happiness and from 
the home of misery, by the well and happy, by the sick and 
dying, have its petitions been wafted up to heaven. And if 
said in the spirit with which our Lord meant it, if there be 
reverence and humility, submission and truth, in the heart, 
may it not as soon reach the Father, though it be a Catholic 
repeating it in an unknown tongue, or the ignorant child who 
can only say it after another ? It is the spirit which makes 
the prayer alive, and carries it up to God. 

You remember in Dickens' Bleak House the pathetic scene 
in which Joe dies ? Joe was a street Arab, utterly untaught, 
but faithful to his friends and to his trust. He is taken ill of 
the small-pox, and is kindly cared for by a good physician. 
As he is dying the physician stands beside him trying to get 
a little spiritual light into his dark soul. " The dying boy 
suddenly says, ' It's turned very dark, sir ! Is there any light 
a-comin' ?' 'It is coming fast, Joe. Joe, my poor fellow.' 
' I hear you, sir, in the dark ; but I'm a-gropin', a-gropin' ; 
let me catch hold of your hand.' 'Joe, can you say what I 
say ? ' ' I'll say anything as you say, sir, for I know it's good.' 
' Our Father] — ' Our Father : yes, that is very good, sir.' 
1 Which art in heaven] — 'Art in heaven. Is the light a-com- 
in', sir ? ' 'It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name] — 

1 Hallowed be thy .' The light is come upon the 

dark, benighted wav. Dead ! " 



88 

And I have read another little story telling how this prayer 
clings to the mind and heart. A little boy was picked up 
one day in the streets of London, his legs all crushed by a 
heavy wheel having passed over them. He was taken home ; 
the surgeon did what he could, but told the little fellow that 
he must die. The lad had been to one of the mission schools 
in London, had there learned of Jesus and His salvation, and 
this prayer. When he knew that he must quickly die, he 
turned to his mother, telling her not to cry, for he was going 
to be with Jesus soon, — that was all. He lay very quietly 
while life was ebbing. The minister came to pray with him, 
but looking at him thought him already dead. He knelt by 
the bedside to pray with the mother, and when he came to 
the Lord's Prayer, the little fellow seemed to revive and with 
his last strength joined in and prayed through the whole, 
and then, sinking back breathed his spirit into his Father's 
hands. 

May we so learn this prayer that in dying we may truly 
speak to Our Father, and be borne up to heaven with our 
soul made fragrant with the incense of its spirit. 



IV. 

CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF THE 
WORTH OF A MAN. 

[Preached, Rockville, Union Service, Nov. 16, 1879.] 



Matt, xn, 12. — How much then is a man better than a sheep ? 

There appears to have been something of indignation in 
the tone in which this was uttered. 

Jesus was going to cure a man who had a withered hand, 
but the Pharisees standing around were finding fault with 
Him because it was the Sabbath. But they would labor to 
save a sheep from injury even on the Sabbath ; and is not a 
man of more value than a sheep, exclaims Jesus, indignant at 
their hard-heartedness and narrowness. 

In this saying we find a hint of the estimate that our Lord 
had of the worth of a man. And starting from this exclama- 
tion it will be my endeavor to show, from Christ's words and 
works and life, how highly He valued man as man. 

I. It was a time when not much account was made of 
human beings. No heathen people seemed to care for human 
rights or human life, and the Jews were more intent upon 
petty laws by which to bind the soul than to exalt or save 
man. Xerxes driving his millions before him from Asia to 
Greece, penning them up to number them, his officers last- 
ing them with long whips to compel them to fight, then 
leaving their bones to bleach on the fields of Attica or Bceotia, 
fitly represents the estimate that Oriental monarchs put 
upon men. 

The old Egyptian kings seemed to make no account of man 
whatever, except as a beast of burden, notwithstanding their 
12 



9 o 

belief in immortality and the pains that were taken to make 
mummies of their carcasses. The masses were compelled to 
put their whole lives at the bidding of the monarch, — to drag 
the huge stones and pile up the gigantic masses which could 
serve no purpose except to make a resting place for the 
mummy of the one who ruled them. The individual life was 
nothing, not even as much as the life of the beast. 

And even in civilized Greece and Rome, there was not 
much more value placed upon humanity, and no more at all, 
for the human beings outside of Greek and Roman citizen- 
ship. Read the account of the Gallic wars given by Caesar, 
the most enlightened of the Romans of his day, noted for 
his clemency, and see how little account he made of the 
worth of man. To say nothing of the huge slaughter and 
massacre that attended his campaigns and which are the 
accompaniment of all wars, the sale of his captives as slaves 
brought in an immense booty to himself and his legions. 
And to be a Roman slave was to be chained down to work, 
day by day, with none of the profits nor rights nor pleasures 
of humanity. Even so upright a Roman as Cato, talks of 
his slaves as of cattle, advising, in his book upon husbandry, 
that they should be kept chained to work until they began to 
grow feeble, and then to get rid of them. 

There seems to have been no such thing as pity or mercy 
towards their fellow beings, who happened by chance of war to 
be their slaves, though these might be intelligent and virtu- 
ous, and the blood of princes might flow in their veins. 

If you had been in Rome at the very time when Jesus of 
Nazareth was preaching that the kingdom of God had come 
among men, you might have seen on some festival day the 
multitudes of Rome pouring into the huge amphitheatre to 
witness men fighting with beasts, and men killing each other 
for amusement. The noble ladies of Rome would watch 
men killing one another with delight, and turn their thumbs 
down to signify that they desired the contest should close 
only with the life. They did not seem to think that a man 
was any better than a sheep. 

Christ was to teach mankind a, new and infinitely better 



9i 

lesson. He, for the first time in the world, was to fully show 
forth the worth of man. 

Every miracle that Jesus performed proclaimed the fact 
that a man, no matter how degraded, how weak, how appar- 
ently useless, was yet in the sight of heaven of superlative 
value. We are too apt to look at Christ's miracles as attest- 
ing His Godhead, and His power as divine. Books upon the 
evidence of Christianity make much account of the miracles 
in connection with the divinity of Christ. Certainly, they are 
very important in this direction, they do attest that the crea- 
tive energy, the life-giving power of the Godhead dwelt in 
Jesus. 

But may we not lay stress upon the miracles as evidencing 
that Christ saw more in man than had ever been seen 
before ? 

It seems to me that every one of those divine works teaches 
us not only that Jesus had come forth from the bosom of the 
Father, to reveal unto men the Godhead, but also to reveal 
the divine view of what man is, that in every man as well as 
in Jesus dwelt some portion of the divine nature. 

For, remember, his miracles were performed in the major- 
ity of cases upon those who would be called by their fellow- 
men the lowest and most useless specimens of humanity. 
One is a paralytic, seemingly worthless to society, a poor, 
bed-ridden wretch, a burden to his friends and a curse to 
himself ; such a person as most heathen people, and even 
the civilized Romans, would have considered themselves justi- 
fied in getting rid of by any means. The divine eye of Jesus 
discerns the man in the paralytic or the leper, and stoops 
not to pity, but to restore. 

One day, while a great crowd is accompanying Him, He 
is stopped by a poor, blind beggar, well known not only as an 
object of pity, but also of contempt. His disciples feel it an 
imposition upon the Master for such a miserable object to hin- 
der this triumphal procession. They all cry out to the 
beggar to keep still, and get out of the way. 

But what does Jesus do ? They must all stop and wait, 
while with infinite sweetness and tenderness He first con- 



9 2 

verses with this poor man and then grants all that he asks. 
Infinite greatness and power wait to serve the blind beggar. 
At another time, He is approached by a company of those 
most loathsome creatures, dreaded and avoided by every one 
in the East, incurable, exiles from home and all human soci- 
ety except their own, maimed, disfigured, hideous-looking 
lepers. Does Jesus, like the rest, turn away from them with 
fear and disgust ? To pity them would be a great deal, to 
speak with them, what few would do. But Christ, with more 
than pity, talks with them, as if the blood which coursed 
through their veins were pure and healthy, instead of poison 
and corrupt ; as if their countenances were fair and smooth, 
instead of eaten and roughened ' by sores. He heals them, 
and so teaches again that He discerned beneath the foulest 
exterior the inestimable value of the humanity within. 
The figure has been used before, and it is a very true one, 
that Jesus was like the merchant who seeks amid rags and 
filth, and the contagion of disease, the costliest gems, and 
pearls of greatest price. 

That Jesus stooped so low, that he showed to the very 
meanest so much of divine kindliness and helpfulness, has 
often been adduced as indicating the largeness of His pity, 
the infinity of His love, and certainly we cannot help but 
see supreme tenderness and affection towards man in these 
miracles. But pity, after all, may be closely akin to con- 
tempt ; we often pity those whom we despise. If you were 
in Bombay, one of the sights which you would be asked to 
visit would be the hospital for animals. There you would 
behold one of the most grotesque sights in the world, oxen, 
cows, sheep, hens, ducks, geese, crows, rats, and mice, all kinds 
of animals, wild and domestic, — with broken legs, eyes put 
out, having sores and deformities^ and diseases of all kinds, 
with a host of attendants to take care of them, and physi- 
cians to splinter up the broken limbs, and to attend upon the 
diseased. But if you had been in this same country farther 
inland, during the recent famine, you might have seen hu- 
man beings starving in their homes, by the roadside, on the 
banks of the river, passed by with the most supreme indif- 



93 

ference by their fellow-countrymen, and only cared for by 
the Christian Missionary, and by those whom Christ's reli- 
gion had moved to compassion. Does not this show that 
there are unnumbered millions now who do not think that 
man is better than a sheep. 

It is to be noticed that no instance is recorded of Jesus 
performing a miracle for the sake of any dumb beast. The 
Apocryphal Gospels tell of Jesus, when a little boy, making 
little sparrows out of clay, and then by clapping his hands, 
causing them to come to life and fly away. But we feel at 
once how utterly alien this is to the spirit and work of the 
real Jesus. He speaks, to be sure, with great tenderness of 
the birds and of the flowers, and of the fact that not a spar- 
row falls to the ground without our Father's notice, — but you 
will observe that He says to the disciples your Father, not 
their Father. There is no divine relationship between the 
others of God's creatures and Himself, as there is between 
Him and man. God's care is over all His works, as the 
Psalmist tells us, but it is for man's sake only that Christ, in 
His divine compassion, performs his mighty works of heal- 
ing, of opening blind eyes and unstopping deaf ears. Man 
alone, then, Christ teaches us, is worthy of this great love, and 
of this tender solicitude. In man, alone, of all the creatures 
of earth, does Christ find that precious value, which is worth 
disinterring from the mass of impurity and rubbish in which 
it may be buried. For man alone was that infinite pity 
which had no tinge of contempt, but rather an affectionate 
yearning for the recovery of fallen greatness. 

II. I remark in the second place, that Christ's words con- 
cerning man show the same high estimate of his worth. 

If He was not the first to speak of the Fatherhood of 
God, and of the universal band of brotherhood which binds 
man first to God, and therefore man to man ; yet He alone 
speaks of that relationship as the basis upon which He esti- 
mated man, and upon which all God's acts towards us. and 
ours to one another, should be performed. 

He was the first to teach us to recognize the divine Father- 



94 

hood in the care of all, high and low, the meanest as well as 
the best. What a striking contrast there was between His 
words in this respect and those of the highest pagans of that 
and preceding times. A few of the powerful and noble, 
kings, princes, and heroes were flattered by the legends that 
traced their lineage back to the gods. Alexander was as- 
sured by the Egyptians that he was the son of Jupiter 
Ammon. Caesar pretended to believe that his ancestors 
sprang from Eneas, whose mother was a goddess. But this 
honor was reserved for the few. There was a sense in which 
Jupiter was called father of gods and men, but anyone who 
has read Greek and Roman mythology, knows in how dif- 
ferent a sense that term was used from that in which Jesus 
speaks of our God. If the heathen could have conceived of 
one God, it would have amazed and astounded them to have 
had Him revealed as the father of all, Barbarian, Greek, 
bond and free, the prosperous and the miserable. It was 
Jesus who first opened up to mankind this grand truth, that 
every poorest and most miserable, and most degraded son of 
man might trace his lineage up to one Almighty God. We 
are all children of God as well as sons of men ; Christ was the 
first to reveal this unto men. 

All His words concerning man were in agreement with 
this conception of man. Even the vilest sinner, wandering 
far off from God, and abjuring by his vices his relationship 
to Him, is in Christ's estimation still a son, a prodigal son, 
a ruined son, a lost son, but still a child whom the father 
will acknowledge and receive, and to whom He will restore 
all he has forfeited, and make him welcome to His home and 
to all His possessions, — if he will only come back. 

It is in accordance with this same idea that Jesus so often 
says, "The son of man is come to seek, and to save that 
which was lost." He came forth from the Godhead, from 
the high and heavenly places, from joys unspeakable and 
glories inconceivable, that He might win the wanderers back 
to their father's house. With this same teaching also agrees 
what He says and what His apostles say of His incarnation. 
He, being God, became man. In this short statement is a 



95 

wonderful revelation of the estimation which our divine Lord 
placed upon man. " For verily He took not on Him the 
nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." 
And, " He is not ashamed to call men brethren." 

And mind, this is said of everyone, the vilest as well as 
the best. Christ sees in everyone a son of God, a brother to 
Himself. All have the right to come and claim this rela- 
tionship, and to found upon it, if they will, a voucher to a 
divine inheritance. This teaching of Christ is the secret of 
His compassion, His tenderness, His love, His making com- 
panions of publicans and sinners, His miraculous works of 
healing and helpfulness. He was searching everywhere and 
always, in all those whom He met, for the stamp of divinity 
which He knew was on man's soul, and which at the same 
time was the stamp of humanity : the divinity and humanity 
in the same man, brought together, and united by faith ; a 
beautiful evidence at last of the long-forgotten relationship. 

This truth, too, that all men are the children of God (and 
hence their great worth) accounts for the pathetic words 
which Christ often uses when speaking of man as a sinner. 
He never speaks harshly or indignantly of the lowest sinner, 
only of those who laid great claim to righteousness, but were 
entirely without it. There is no harshness for the poor 
shame-stricken woman, nor cold distance towards those 
whom every body else sneeringly spoke of as publicans and 
sinners. He will come very close to them, He will speak 
very kindly to them, He will do all things for them, He calls 
them unto Himself. Why ? Because in every one He sees 
a child of God, ruined, lost, but of vast worth, even in ruins. 

What a contrast to all this is the manner in which the 
mass of men were spoken of by the ancient Heathen philoso- 
phers ; in which they are spoken of by scientific infidels and 
men of the world to-day. Carlyle's " 40,000,000 people in 
England, mostly fools," well expresses the extreme contempt 
with which the wise men of to-day, — wise in their own 
opinion, — speak of their fellow-men. 

They do not see what Jesus saw beneath all folly, shallow- 
ness, and sin in man, the image of God, battered, bruised, the 



9 6 

best lineaments defaced, yet capable of being restored, reno- 
vated, and made to appear in its original beauty and divine 
perfection. For " He knew what was in man," and came to 
bring out the full worth of what he saw there. 

III. But Christ's conception of man's worth is seen in its 
fullness only when we come to look at the purpose for which 
he entered into humanity, and how He accomplished that 
purpose. We see by all the words and acts of Jesus, that 
there was absolutely no object before Him as a life work but 
to help men ; to reveal unto them what they were, and to 
what they might rise as children of the Most High. But 
how much this meant — to help men — could not be known 
until he hung on the cross — not as a martyr, not as a victim to 
His faithfulness in His mission ; Oh, no, more than this — as 
a willing sacrifice for man. The death of Christ tells much 
more even than His self-denying life, of the value He put 
upon humanity. To toil for another, to devote all one's days 
and nights to him, to carry him upon one's heart and in one's 
mind, to make great sacrifices for him ; all this shows how 
much that one is prized, how highly he is estimated. 

And if it comes to the last great test, and one feels that he 
can even die for the one for whom he has labored and made 
such sacrifices — what higher proof can be given of the extreme 
regard he had for the beloved object ? The whole purpose 
of Jesus' life, as I have said, was to help men, the supreme 
end for which he died was to redeem them. For this end 
came He into the world, for this end He endured all sorrow 
and privation and suffering, for this end He gave Himself to 
the shameful and agonizing death of the cross. All this for 
man, all this for you and me ; does it not prove that Jesus saw 
in humanity more than had ever been discovered before ; a 
worth and a dignity in man that the wisest had not dreamed 
of. 

I read, once in a while, books written from an infidel or un- 
evangelical stand-point, in which our doctrine of the atone- 
ment is attacked as derogatory to the dignity of man. I read 
such arguments with something of indignation, they are so 
palpably wide of the mark. 



97 

Why, there is nothing in all this wide world that shows 
man as the object of such consideration on the part of God, 
nothing that so exalts him to a lofty position in the universe, 
as this atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, — the Son of God 
shedding His blood that these other children of God might 
find and come to their inheritance. 

Are we worth so much as this ? What one of us should 
dare say that we were unless we had this proof of it, in the 
greatness of the ransom ? 

When Caesar, or some other great man, was taken prisoner 
by the pirates, He was offended because they demanded so 
small a ransom for Him. Know you not that you have 
Caesar with you ? he indignantly protested. The largeness 
of the ransom paid is the measure of the worth of the object 
ransomed. We are bought with an infinite price. Does it not 
show that Christ esteemed humanity of infinite worth ? 
Could man himself have discovered this, could the wisest 
have discerned beneath the sin and folly of mankind all that 
the divine eye of Jesus sought out and revealed to us ? As 
the pearl-diver plunges beneath the dark waters of the ocean, 
and finds there and brings up to the light the priceless pearl, 
so Jesus, coming down from the brightness of His home, 
seeks beneath the dark and turbid waters of sin the costly 
jewel which He alone can bring up from the depths and 
make known to the universe, in its true worth. 

It should be observed, that Christ finds this value of 
humanity, solely or almost solely in man's moral and spiritual 
nature. You will notice that while He estimates man more 
highly than anyone else has ever done, He yet has nothing 
to say about what is usually called human greatness. The 
supremacy over their fellows which men are accustomed to 
•seek so eagerly and prize so highly, the supremacy gained by 
wealth or power or intellectual superiority, He scarce ever 
speaks of, or speaks of it as but of little consequence. The 
least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than such a mighty 
one, in the estimation of Him who knew what was in man, and 
saw his real dignity. To be humble, to depart from iniquity, 
to walk without blame before man, to love God with a pure 

13 



heart, to serve one's fellow-men with earnestness, this is to 
find one's real humanity, to discover oneV real worth as a 
man, to reach the true greatness. Without this, kings and 
princes and intellectual giants have found but little of the 
dignity unto which they might rise as sons of God. 

In view of the inexpressible worth which Jesus has 
revealed as pertaining to our manhood, these two weighty 
practical thoughts come to us in conclusion. 

i. That it is a great and grievous sin to despise any one of 
our fellow-beings. 

The estimate of Jesus is doubtless the true estimate of the 
worth of our manhood, and those who profess to be His 
disciples must receive and act upon His testimony of its 
value. That testimony has been very slowly received, even 
by those who call themselves by His name. But, partially 
as it has been accepted, yet has His revelation concerning 
the sacredness of manhood and its connection with the 
divine, wrought vast changes in society. It has well-nigh 
destroyed slavery, it has mitigated the cruelties and barbari- 
ties of war, it put an end to gladiatorial shows and slaughters, 
it placed the stamp of reprobation upon infanticide, it ranked 
suicide among crimes, it has exalted and blessed woman, it 
has made men helpful to one another in misfortune and dis- 
ease, as they never were before. All these blessings are the 
direct result of the high estimate which Christ put upon man. 
And many more influences have come from this same concep- 
tion, to make the relation of man to man kindlier and more 
helpful, and to make all our social relations more harmonious 
and happy. But still there are many who do not believe that 
a man is better than a sheep. If the conception should be 
received and acted upon by all, it would work still vaster and 
more blessed changes. If all saw and felt the worth of man- 
hood as Jesus has taught and illustrated it, war must entirely 
cease, oppression would be no more, no employer would look 
upon those he employed as mere machines, cheating and 
plundering would be renounced, no one would venture to sell 
or give that to his brother man which would degrade this 
sacred manhood, no one would dare to destroy his brother, 



99 

there would be nothing in this world which anyone would put 
above manhood. 

2. The other practical thought is this : If every human soul 
is thought to be so precious by its Maker, what terrible 
guilt is there in ruining and losing one's self ! To throw 
one's self away in spite of all that has been done to save man, 
to cast one's self down from the height of that humanity, 
which the Creator Himself tells us bears the stamp of the 
Divine Image, to forfeit all the nobleness and honor which 
might pertain to that manhood — could the universe furnish 
another such instance of madness and folly ? The precious- 
ness of this humanity is certainly the gauge of the greatness 
of the sin in wasting and ruining all its value. There use4 to 
be in the British Museum a very costly vase, called the 
Portland Vase, probably the choicest in the world. It was 
protected with the greatest care. But one day a well-dressed 
man raised a cane and shattered it into fragments. The man 
was arrested, but it was soon shown that he was insane. 
Only a freak of madness could do so great and causeless a 
mischief. None but a madman, people exclaimed, could ruin 
so beautiful and so precious an article. And what shall we 
say then of the many who as wantonly break into fragments 
the Image of God given them to keep, and spoil for eternity 
this most precious thing on earth, one's own manhood. 

Many of us will not believe in Jesus' estimate of our worth ; 
we decry ourselves, cheapen our manhood, and say by our 
actions we are of no great worth. But, I believe, one of our 
most agonizing thoughts hereafter, if we do throw ourselves 
away, will be the conviction, forced upon us by the sight of 
what we have lost, that, after all, Jesus Christ was right in 
His estimate of the value of one human soul, and we were 
wrong. And then to think that all this precious humanity, 
which might have been joined to divinity for ever, which cost 
God so much — is lost, lost beyond recall ! 

Robert Hall has these thrilling words upon a lost soul, 
with which let me close. 

" What," he says, " if it be lawful to indulge such a 
thought — what would be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul ? 



100 

Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a specta- 
cle ? or could we realize the calamity in all its extent, what 
token of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal 
to the occasion ? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his 
light, and the moon her brightness ? to cover the ocean with 
mourning, and the heaven with sack-cloth ? Or, were the 
whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, 
would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep or a cry 
too piercing to express the magnitude and extent of such a 
catastrophe ? " 



V. 
SINGLE-MINDEDNESS IN RELIGION. 

(^Preached, Rockville, January 18, 1880.] 



Philippians, 3: 13. — "But this one thing I do." 

If you will look at the text, you will see that of these six 
words which I have chosen to speak from, three are in italics, 
that is, are not represented in the original. The omission of 
these in the translation would make Paul's meaning still more 
vivid than it is here. 

But one thing, — to gain the consummated fruit of his Chris- 
tian course ; — But 07ie thing, — to press on in the way of the 
Lord and victory ; — But one thing, — to attain unto the res- 
urrection and seize Christ wholly. Do not these three words 
well express the meaning of Paul's life ? 

But one thing ; — is not that just what we should expect the 
great apostle to exclaim, if he were going to utter the intent 
of his mind, the love of his heart, the ardor of his soul, the 
aim of his existence. What earnestness, what intensity, 
what ardent expectation and hope are in the words ! 

One thing ever before him ; — that was the way in which 
he lived his life, wrought his work, achieved his end. Let us 
try to read something of his lesson into our own lives. 

Singleness of aim, earnestness of purpose, intensity of 
effort — and all for Christ ; that is what we read in these 
three words. 

Is it not a lesson needed in this distracted, careless, mate- 
rialistic age, confused and perplexed like Pilate as to " what 
is truth," asking sometimes with reckless despair, sometimes 
with sad eagerness, — " Who will show us any good ? " 

To be sure, we boast of the unexampled energy of this 



102 

nineteenth century, of its vast achievements, of the still 
vaster hopes which it has engendered, of its progress towards 
universal enlightenment and happiness. We think if ever 
there was a time when men showed indomitable persever- 
ance, inflexible determination to achieve their ends it is 
now. 

Certainly there is persistence, single-mindedness, intensity 
of purpose everywhere apparent. But one thing is a motto 
with many men to-day, and it brings the reward of success 
where it is found. 

This, one might almost say, is what has formed our nine- 
teenth century civilization. It is an intense civilization, 
formed by intensely active forces, so different in this from 
the old civilization. Scientific men, literary men, practical 
inventors, ambitious statesmen and politicians, manufacturers 
and merchants concentrate their energies on one thing and 
achieve success — and their successes have made this an al- 
most supernaturally busy age of railroads, and telegraphs, 
and machinery. Yes, the modern worker seems to well under- 
stand the necessity of concentration of purpose and energy 
upon one tiling in order to achieve success. 

We have all learned the lesson in matters of this world, 
that the dissipation of one's energies upon a number of ob- 
jects prevents the attaining of any one of them. We tell 
our children that if they would make their way in the world 
and succeed in their vocation, whatever it may be, they must 
give their whole mind to it ; they must meet difficulty with a 
determination to overcome it ; they must not be set back by 
apparent failures. 

And this has been the history of all success in all times. 
When genius has found its way to the high places of the 
world once, persistent, untiring, determined mediocrity has 
risen there a score of times. Looking at one thing, think- 
ing and studying one thing, working for one thing, — this 
makes the Astors and Vanderbilts, the Csesars and Napole- 
ons. It makes an Agassiz and a Darwin. 

True, there was native talent in all these, in some cases 
genius, but with that it was concentration of plan and energy 
in one direction through life that gained them their end. 



103 

John Foster, in his essay upon Decision of Character, 
mentions the case of a young man, illustrating how much an 
unconquerable purpose can achieve in the pursuit of one 
object. The youth had inherited and run through a very 
large property in two or three years. Forsaken by the com- 
panions who had helped him to squander it, and utterly in 
despair, he went out with the determination to take his own 
life. But looking over the beautiful estate which he had lost, 
the resolution seized him to win it back. He formed his 
plan, and immediately began to execute it. He offered him- 
self to perform the first task that met him, which was shov- 
eling a pile of coal into place. He received his pay, and 
asked for some cold meat and bread, that he might save his 
money. So he went on, doing whatever he could find to do, 
spending no penny that he could save, until he acquired some 
capital, then went into the cattle business, indomitably fol- 
lowing the same plan of saving all and spending none, until 
at length he died worth ^60,000. I do not doubt that, 
granting health and strength, almost any one through the 
same unconquerable purpose and persistence, might attain 
the same result with this young man. I should hope that 
no one would find it worth the while. 

But the example shows (and vast numbers of others might 
be adduced very similar,) how large a part this one quality of 
persistence in one thing has upon the issues of our lives in 
worldly matters. The world at large, as I have said, recog- 
nize this. 

But how is it in our religious life, and religious work ? Is 
it not true here as in so many other things, that the children 
of this world are wiser in their generation than the children 
of light ? 

All the world, we may say, is pressing on with earnestness 
and vigor, to fuller and completer possession of the things 
which make for its life ; for riches, for pleasure, for honor, 
for power. Science and invention, knowledge and literature, 
art and merchandise, all are made subservient to what is 
called the world's progress. Men are intent, as they never 
were before, to conquer every one of nature's forces and 



io4 

bind them to their bidding, that they may move more rapidly, 
work more efficiently to provide for themselves comfort, lux- 
ury, ease, enjoyment. That is what our nineteenth century 

civilization means very largely, more than it means increase 
of virtue, wisdom, emancipation from error, from vice, from 
sin and misery. 

True, the eager striving for the former brings along with 
it some advance to the better part of life, but the one tiling 
which the average nineteenth century man or woman has in 
view, as the aim of life, is certainly not moral purity and spir- 
itual perfection. 

There are those, indeed, who are in earnest for the soul 
life, and make it the one supreme thing, to save them- 
selves and others from sin, but the larger part, even of 
those who profess to be disciples of Christ, seem to make 
their one thing quite different. Am I making too harsh 
a charge? I know not the heart of men, but judging from 
the exertions made, the energy displayed, the enthusiasm 
manifest, and also from the fruits brought forth, am I not 
sufficiently cautious when I affirm that professedly Christian 
people greatly lack to-day in moral earnestness, in spiritual 
single-mindedness, in devotion and lovalty to Christ ? Is 
not this evident in the looseness with which men's beliefs 
cling to them, in the lack of zeal for the pushing forward of 
Christ's kingdom, in the vast difference in ardor and earn- 
estness which Christians manifest in pursuing material and 
spiritual good, in the lightness with which so many hold their 
Christian principles ? 

With all that we may say in favor of the church of to-day, 
in comparison with that of previous generations, its increas- 
ing liberality, tolerance, largeness of charity, I fear we must 
admit that on the whole it has lost in earnestness and single- 
mindedness. 

While the intellectual nature of man has been greatly 
awakened, and his desire for progress is almost of feverish 
intensity, it seems to me that his spiritual faculties, beset 
with doubts and speculations, overborne by the material ten- 
dencies of our civilization, are in danger of becoming lethar- 



105 

gic. But I do not mean to portray at length the dangers to 
the church, but by these one or two glimpses at what I think 
are our peculiar perils as Christians, I would lay the basis 
for an appeal for more single-mindedness and devotion in 
our Christian life. 

So, to turn now from a consideration of the general condi- 
tion of the Christian mind as evidenced in the faith and works 
of the church to day, if we should inquire of our own hearts, 
brethren and friends, must we not confess that the one thing 
that presses upon us most is not that one thing of which 
Paul speaks ? 

But if we recognize, as we do, the necessity of devotedness 
to whatever business or profession we may pursue, in order 
to success, why do we not recognize the same fact in our 
religious life ? If we are true disciples of the Lord, we do 
wish to succeed in living blameless lives, in making spiritual 
progress, in helping on our great Master's Kingdom. I know 
• that many lament that they are no better Christians, and 
because their lives seem to amount to no more for Christ. 

The prayers and remarks' in our social meetings give evi- 
dence of the same state of feeling ; a bewailing of spiritual 
coldness, of inactivity and listlessness, often making up a 
large part of the exercises. I suppose that a company of 
business men would be ashamed to meet together once a 
week, year after year, to discourse upon their want of interest 
in their work and its results ; a circle of mothers would be 
equally so, at the idea of meeting to grieve over their cold- 
ness towards their families. 

Why must we bewail, year after year, our lack of interest 
in the great family of Christ, to which we belong, and our 
carelessness concerning its prosperity, and our own stagnant 
spiritual lives ? Christians often speak and I suppose think 
of their apathetic condition as of a state which they cannot 
help. They would if they could, but really cannot live any 
holier, more zealous, more active lives. They are waiting for 
the Holy Spirit to revive them. The blame of their inactivity, 
of their poor Christian living, then, lies on the Spirit of God. 
They would shudder to say this in just so many words, but, 
14 



io6 

brethren, is not this about what we mean when we say in 
excuse for our want of zeal and activity for Christ, we can do 
nothing without the Holy Spirit ? We can abuse the most 
important and solemn truth to our damnation, while pro- 
fessing to believe in it. 

If we would be honest with ourselves, and give the true 
reason for our failures in Christian living and work, would it 
not be that Ave bad deliberately put something else before 
Christ and His church ? More or less consciously, we give 
the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness a subordinate 
place in our souls. I would not charge this upon any pro- 
fessed Christian, but would ask every one to consider whether 
all his stumbling, his difficulties, his gloom, his apathy, all 
his spiritual failures, are not traceable to this, — that he for- 
gets his original vows of a whole-hearted devotion to Christ 
and His service. 

And have we any right to the name of Christians if some- 
thing else than Christ and the prize of His high calling be 
the one thing of our lives ? See, now, what perils immedi- 
ately spring from our forgetting this fundamental condition 
of our Christian citizenship ! 

i . And first : If our religion be a secondary matter, sub- 
ordinate to some other interest, faith and hope will be all 
mystical terms to us, of which we know practically little. 
Christian service will be hard, acts of devotion distasteful, 
religion as a whole a bitter experience which is a stern neces- 
sity to avoid going to hell, instead of the free, glad exercise 
of our spiritual faculties, lifting us all the time heavenward 
of itself. 

Christ has told us that His yoke is easy and His burden 
light, and all find it so who make it the chief thing of their 
lives with willing hearts to take His service upon them. But 
if religion be not taken up with the heart, it is a great bond- 
age, a round of disagreeable duties and exercises paid to pur- 
chase an insurance policy for heaven. Dr. Finney says in 
his pithy way, " Let us ask those who groan under the idea 
that they must be religious, who deem it awfully hard — but 
they must — how much religion of this kind will it take to 



107 

make hell? Surely not much." There are a great many 
professed Christians, I fear, whose religion only serves to 
make them terribly uncomfortable. They want to do this 
and that which other people do ; to go to this or that place 
of dissipated pleasure which others frequent ; and yet, they 
feel that their profession doesn't quite allow it, and so they 
are pulled this way by their inclinations and that way by their 
profession, and make out, on the whole, a very miserable time 
of it. They haven't got where Paul's one thing is uppermost, 
paramount all the time in their minds, and they will not have 
any peace in their religion until they get upon Paul's ground 
in this respect. 

2. Then again, one who does not conscientiously and 
heartily put Christ first in all the affairs of life, makes his 
religion a very unreal, hollow, empty thing. To make religion 
secondary in our estimation is, of course, to make it of less 
consequence than something else ; and when we get to think 
of anything — business, enjoyment, honor, ease — as of more 
consequence than righteousness and the service of Christ, 
we are close to hypocrisy, if not already actual hypocrites. 
I think if you should trace the inner life of those men who 
have borne an irreproachable name hitherto, but have sud- 
denly turned out forgers, defaulters, adulterers, or murderers, 
you would find that the one thing of their heart about which 
they had been earnest, single-minded, and persistent, had 
never been Christ and His work. One does not choose Baal 
after he has had living, experimental testimony in his own 
heart of the glory, the greatness, the mercy, and goodness of 
Jehovah. 

But what wickedness may a man not be guilty of, if all the 
time he has been pretending to serve Jehovah, he has really 
been in league with the Baal worship. This by some is called 
the age of sham, and the worst of its shams is a veneered 
religion ; that kind of religion which attends balls and 
theatres and wine-parties, and has its heart set on these for 
three hundred and twenty-five days, and then seeks to make 
it all right with Jehovah by keeping forty days Lent as its 
equivalent. 



io8 

Every honest man will say, away with such cant and 
affectation of religion ; be one thing or another ; don't think 
you can deceive anybody but yourself, by thus hankering 
after what your religion condemns, and then trying to com- 
promise with your Maker by going through the form of serv- 
ing Him. Such a course as that, such double-mindedness, 
has made scoundrels ever since Cain killed Abel after paying 
his worship to God. 

Every reader of the Gospels knows what pains Jesus takes 
in His teaching to make it plain that He demands the first 
place in the hearts of His disciples, single-mindedness in de- 
votion to Him, earnestness in His service, fixedness of pur- 
pose ever to be true and loyal to Him. " If any man cometh 
to me and hateth not his father and mother and wife and 
children and brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, 
he cannot be my disciple." "Whosoever he be of you that 
forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." 
Could the requirements be put in stronger language ? Could 
anything show more forcibly that Christ will not, cannot, 
have any other object placed above His claims ? 

And he demands that we shall persist in this devotion. 
"iSloman having put his hand to the plough and looking 
back, is Jit for the kingdom of God." One thing supreme in 
the heart, loyalty to one master, one great aim of life, above 
all others, earnestness, devotedness, persistence in one para- 
mount purpose, such is the condition, of Christian disciple- 
ship which we acknowledge when we enter into covenant with 
God. With such high endeavors do we set out to live the 
Christian life. 

Are they not right conditions ? Are they not what we 
ought to expect ? Could they be any different ? Surely if 
God be not worthy the first place in our souls, He is not God 
at all. "My glory will I not give to another." If right be 
right, then we cannot yield a half-hearted obedience to it, for 
that would make right only half right. 

The one who has never tasted the love of Christ, who 
knows nothing of the blessedness of His service, might say 
that this looked hard ; to give up all for Christ and to make 



109 

Him first and foremost in love and in service ; but no true 
Christian can speak of its being a hardship to put anything 
in a secondary place to his Saviour. As to money, pleasure, 
ease, place, how can a disciple of Christ who has begun 
really to know his Lord, feel that these can be put before 
Christ ? 

Is there more than one thing that is worth setting our 
hearts upon and spending our lives for ? What follower of 
Christ who has felt the peace which the Spirit sent into his 
soul when he sought and found pardon, who has known the 
satisfaction of conscious obedience to the will of God, who 
has felt some of the pleasure of work for Jesus, and the joy 
of self-denial for his sake, who has begun to pierce behind 
the veil info the glory and blessedness of heaven, can hesi- 
tate to answer, — there is but one thing of supreme import- 
ance for me to gain, there is but one thing which should 
demand the chief earnestness of my nature, the largest re- 
sources of my soul. 

There is nothing in all this wide world which should eclipse 
my Lord, nothing which ought to turn me aside from doing 
His work. 

But perhaps some one will say : I cannot put my greatest 
energies and enthusiasm into religion. My business and 
family necessarily occupy me so that I have but little time or 
strength for religion. Such a plea as this rests upon that 
perverted medieval view of religious living and work which 
made men think there was no way to serve God except by 
withdrawing from secular caies and business into monas- 
teries. 

There is a legend I have read — told by Mrs. Charles, of 
some old cathedral chimes. It was one of those old cathe- 
drals which the poets call music in stone. The chimes were 
the delight and solace of all the people in the town. Every 
hour, night and day, they sweetly played a tune, as if music 
were dropping down from heaven to cheer and elevate poor 
sinners. Every quarter hour, a single note or strain told the 
hearers that they were so much nearer the end. So, thoughts 
of heaven and rest, and pure blessedness, kept coming into 



no 

their minds, wafted there by those silvery tones from the ca- 
thedral chimes. Suddenly the chimes ceased. Peasant and 
lord listened for them in vain. Great terror came upon the 
people, for they thought the ceasing of the chimes portended 
some great calamity. Night came, but they did not dare to 
retire, and so gathered in the square before the cathedral to 
discuss in low tones the disaster. Suddenly a sound came 
down from the great tower in which the chimes were hung. 
The chimes were speaking in their soft weird tones, and as 
they listened, the people could distinguish the apology they 
gave. They said : we were made for sacred uses, and we 
stand in a sacred building, and we are not going to be per- 
verted to secular purposes any longer. 

We are willing to serve out the summons to call the peo- 
ple to church ; we will send up glad notes at your weddings, 
for marriage is a sacrament ; we will toll the solemn requiem 
when your dead bodies are borne to the church yard. But 
do not expect us any longer to do what your house clocks do 
as well. Let these tell you when to eat, and drink and 
sleep. 

We are sacred things, set apart from all secular uses ; call 
on us no longer to commune with things of earth and time. 
Thus the chimes. But from the people arose great lamenta- 
tion. The fathers, and mothers, and children all mourned 
together, that, with their work, and cares, and school, and 
play, those sweet sounds which they had learned to associate 
with heavenly teachings should no longer mingle. 

To morning and evening prayer the music of the chimes 
had called them ; at their meals those sweet strains had re- 
minded them of God the giver ; in the wakeful hours of the 
night, when anxious or troubled, the mellow voices of the 
bells had sent their thoughts to the dear Friend who always 
cared for them ; into the sick-room their soft melody poured 
comfort and strength, and brought the Peace of the Holy 
Ghost into their hearts. 

And so all joined in crying, Sweet bells, your commonest 
tones are sacred to us, your heavenly music makes all our 
labor like something done for God. Happy and holy thoughts 



Ill 

are brought to us in the midst of household cares or farmers' 
toils ; by the dear sound of your voices all seems a part of 
the service of God. Those unworldly strains fall upon us as 
if from heaven. 

And so went up the lamentation of the people. But the 
chimes obstinately refused to have anything to do with worldly 
affairs. At length a young priest affirmed his belief that the 
chimes were possessed with the devil, for they were doing 
the devil's work in refusing to let God's thoughts and inspi- 
rations come down into the work-a-day world. So they ex- 
orcised the bells, and then the chimes poured out their floods 
of sweetness on the air, and rich true lessons of Christian 
love, and of the better world and of holiness, came each hour 
of the day into the hearts of all the townspeople. 

The meaning of the legend is not far to seek. Should not 
devotion to Christ and the pressing on to know Him and the 
power of His resurrection be so supreme, so fixed in our 
hearts, that even in our busiest hours, when most troubled 
or careworn, most harrassed or perplexed, that one thing 
should steal into our hearts like sweet music to give us peace 
and rest, strength and blessedness, in spite of all ? 

Should it not be so with us ? our spiritual life so strong, 
the kingdom of God and His righteousness so first of all, 
that religion should weave itself into all our business and all 
our enjoyments, and all our social and domestic life, that all 
should be the service of God ? 

There can be no question with any of us, that the one 
thing which ought to be in our mind and heart should be 
that which so weighed upon the mind of Paul. " Forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forward unto 
those things which are before, I press toward the mark for 
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." "Let 
us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." 

And if it should be so, that Christ should be always first 
in our minds, what might we not accomplish, first in our own 
spiritual strengthening and exaltation, and then, in extend- 
ing and making firm the kingdom of our Lord on earth ? 

What has been wrought for the Church of Christ and in 



112 

the developing of Christian character towards perfection, has 
been performed, just as in material progress — by concentra- 
tion of energy, enthusiasm and practical wisdom upon the 
one thing. 

Luther, Knox, Wesley, Whitefield, Martin, Brainard, How 
ard, Judson, the hosts of Christian workers, achieved what 
they did for Christ because with singleness of aim, and in- 
tentness of purpose, with devotion and loyalty to their great 
Captain, they simply followed where He had led. And this 
is all that is required of us, all that is necessary for us in 
order to realize the highest conception of Christian living, 
and all that is necessary to bring this world to Jesus. 

Oh, I think, as I see the pressing eagerness which men 
(Christian men) manifest to gain money, office, comfort and 
enjoyment, — oh, that this energy, this devotedness, this per- 
sistency could be given to Christ really, as these men profess 
to have given them ; then, what triumphs would be in pros- 
pect for the church of Christ ; in what a glorious career 
should we move to victory over all the forces of this world ! 
It would require only what we have to give if we will ; 
namely, the consecration, the whole-hearted consecration of 
all the powers and faculties with which the Creator has al- 
ready endowed us. No new forces are needed, but only the 
Holy Spirit working through these natural energies and af- 
fections, to transform us into Christians that our Lord would 
delight to honor, and change this whole earth into the beau- 
tiful and flourishing garden of the Lord. 



VI. 
CHRIST'S CALL TO THE UNCON- 
VERTED. 

[Preached Rockville, Union Service, Feb. 15, 1880.] 

Rev. 3: 20. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man 
hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup 
with him, and he with me." 



There are a great many religions in the world, but none of 
them all, except Christianity, represents God as seeking man 
and coming to him to save him. 

The most beneficent of all outside religions, in its original, 
is Buddhism. The founder of it was the most Christ-like of 
any man that ever lived who had not known Christ. With 
pain and self-denial, with life-long earnestnesss and devotion, 
he sought to teach men how to escape sin and its misery, and 
to find everlasting rest. He thought it necessary for himself 
to spend many years in fasting and solitary meditation to 
get a glimpse of the truth. Then the best that he could tell 
his fellow-men was, that through his rules and by the severest 
self discipline they might eventually attain unto complete 
rest. And the result of his teaching is, on the one hand, 
monastic asceticism, with severest self-torture and formalism ; 
and on the other the grossest idolatry and superstition. But 
Christianity teaches us that God comes down to earth seek- 
ing sinful men ; that he furnishes every means to enable 
them to escape their misery and guilt ; much more than that,* 
He offers constant help and constant guidance to every one 
that is groping the way out. 

No more beautiful and striking, no more encouraging and 
inspiring figure could be given of this great truth than this 
15 



U4 

in the text : The Son of God standing at the door of the 
heart of each sinful man, and knocking and waiting — waiting 
and knocking with long and unwearied patience, biding the 
time when the door shall be opened that He may enter in 
and bestow a priceless and endless blessing. 

It is a very touching thought, too, that one so mighty and 
so good, the infinite Creator and Upholder of the universe, 
should so wait upon the will of His creatures, so gently 
intercede with them, so lovingly call them to his rest and 
salvation. 

And this figure of the text is of a piece with other repre- 
sentations of the patient waiting and loving pleading of our 
God. Some of the most familiar and most precious passages 
of the Bible thus represent the divine search for man. 
" Come, now, let us reason together, saith the Lord, though 
your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow ; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 

And what sweeter, more affecting words than the oft- 
quoted invitation of Jesus : " Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And in one 
utterance of Jesus we have, as it were, an epitome of all 
history, so far as it shows God's dealings with man ; His for- 
bearance, His pity, His readiness to save, His waiting for 
man to accept His salvation. Sitting over against the city, 
He wept over it and said : " O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem^ 
thou that killest the prophets and stonest them who are sent 
unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children 
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not." Could there be expressed more 
forcibly and more pathetically the fact of God's entire will- 
ingness to save and bless, and man's unwillingness to be 
saved ? Jesus gave it as the one purpose of his life that he 
came to seek and to save those that are lost. Take the three 
passages together : Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, His decla- 
ration of the purpose of His life while on earth, and my text, 
and we have the joyful and hopeful truth that our Redeemer 
and Saviour Jesus Christ ever has been, is now and ever will 
be, so long as the world stands, using every effort to bring 



n5 

men home to Him and to His salvation. For these words of 
my text speak of Christ as standing at the door of men's 
hearts and knocking for admittance, long after he had as- 
cended from earth. Consequently, we are taught that He is 
striving now, still knocking, still seeking. Will we accept 
His company, His favors, and the salvation which He brings ? 
His voice may now be heard, if men will listen ; and if they 
will hear his voice, now as then is the promise good, that He 
will come in, and so the Son of God and sinful man may 
feast together. 

I. And how does his voice come to us ? May we hear it, as 
did the prophets of old, in the visions of the night, or must 
we listen for it in the recesses of our soul, speaking like the 
still, small voice that warns us of sin and stirs up its sleeping 
faculties in protest when we would do wrong ? May we easily 
distinguish the voice from all others ? Does it call to us 
frequently ? It is a voice that calls upon us incessantly, I 
answer, only we so deaden our spiritual senses that having 
eyes we see not, having ears we hear not, neither will we 
understand. A great many are so spiritually stupid that 
unless the voice of God thunders in their ears they will not 
admit that he is nigh ; unless the sound of the knocking of 
the Spirit rises above the din and clatter of the world 
they will pay no attention. 

The constant daily benefactions of the Heavenly Father, 
the perpetual streams of bounties which His goodness causes 
to flow into our lives, the marks of His loving regard and care 
around us ; all these speak to us, and we ought to hear their 
voice, telling us that we should live as obedient, truthful 
children, and that by a natural impulse we should seek to be 
in as close communion with God as possible. 

But God is not limited in means of speaking to us ; not 
only through the daily mercies of His providence and 
through the voice of nature, not only through the conscience 
and the spiritual sensibilities does he seek to call us into 
fellowship with Himself, but especially through the old 
accustomed avenues of the written and spoken word, does 
there come the warning from sin and the invitation to live in 



n6 

God's blessed ways. Not one of us all but has known at 
times that his Redeemer was calling upon him ; upon him 
especially, to forsake the way of unrighteousness and to 
cleave unto God. There are a great many avenues into the 
soul of man, and if he will but open the door he may hear 
the voice of God as plainly as Adam heard it when he 
walked up and down in the paths of the garden of Eden. 
The sense of guilt makes us try to hide ourselves from our 
God in some of the winding ways of sin, but still he calls 
after us. 

A gentleman, not a Christian, who had a very beautiful 
home and family, invited a friend into the nursery where his 
two little boys were asleep. " They are very beautiful," said 
the friend, " but are they going to have no help from the 
father in getting into heaven ? " The words came to the 
father as the very pleading of Christ to let Him in as his 
Helper, and he listened to the voice. Having once opened his 
heart he could not help listening, and he obeyed and gave him- 
self to Christ, afterwards leading, not only his noble boys, but 
many others to Him. And there is not an impenitent man 
or woman here to-night, nor a careless professing Christian, 
who have children, but might hear that same pleading of 
Christ, as they look upon their dear, sweet faces to-night — 
" Are these children to have no help from father or mother 
in getting to heaven ? " Christ often knocks at men's hearts by 
means of children. It is often now as in days of old—" a 
little child shall lead them." 

There was an Indian father who had only one little girl 
left, and she was pining away with consumption. He was 
very tender with her, caring for her with his own hands, 
taking her out into the bright sunshine in the pleasant June. 
She had opened her heart to Jesus, through the words of the 
missionaries, and found peace even as she was to pass away. 
But her father had not yet known how sweet it was to dwell 
in the love of Christ, brighter than the sunshine of June, 
and it was all dark to him. On a beautiful, warm day, his 
little girl asked her father to take her down by the side of the 
brook, of whose soft murmur and green banks she was very 



ii7 

fond, perhaps because it made her think of the green pastures 
and still waters where the Good Shepherd leads his beloved. 
The father denied her nothing ; so took her in his arms ten- 
derly and carried her by the brookside. And as she lay on 
the soft grass, perhaps she saw the angels beckoning her, for 
suddenly she cried out, " Father, pray." " I can't," he replied, 
" I have never prayed." " But, father, do pray, and ask God 
to make you a Christian, for I am going now where Jesus 
and the angels are, and I want to tell them that my father 
was praying." And so the father, though his heart was 
almost breaking, could not refuse his little girl's last request, 
and knelt down to pray. The spirit of prayer and of peni- 
tence was given him, and he poured out his soul in penitence 
to God, and opened his heart for Jesus to come in. And 
when he arose, he looked upon his little girl, and she lay 
there dead, with a sweet, glad smile upon her lips, gone to 
tell the angels that her father was praying. It may be that 
there are some here whose dear girl or boy is soon to go 
where " their angels do always behold the face of the Father 
in heaven." And is not the voice of Jesus speaking through 
them, pleading with you to open your soul in prayer that they 
may carry the news to heaven — " my father, my mother, prays." 
Death is often recognized as being the voice of Jesus, say- 
ing again through the speechless lips of the departed, what 
He himself said to His disciples, " Be ye also ready, for in 
such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." But 
why will we not also hear the voice of our Lord when all is joy 
and gladness, and know then that He is knocking for admit- 
tance to our souls ? Why should we wait till our hearts are 
wrung with anguish, before we will admit that we need the 
companionship and divine indwelling of the Comforter ? 
Unstop your ears, my friends, and every passing breeze would 
tell how divine and how precious are the gifts of the Re- 
deemer of the world ; how blessed His presence every hour 
of the day. Open your eyes, and every one of the million 
rays of sunlight flooding field and forest brings a sweet mes- 
sage of the radiance that would fill your soul, if you would 
but let in your waiting Saviour. 



n8 

The simple thought that the Son of God is waiting for the 
simple purpose of making our souls fit to dwell with Him 
in eternal blessedness, ought to move us at once to open the 
door and let Him in. Why does not the love of Christ move 
more men to love Him who first loved us ; to yield to Him a 
glad and willing obedience ? People say, preach the love of 
God ; that will move men ; men are not converted now 
through fear. We do preach the love of God, as we do most 
sincerely and most heartily believe it. We sing the love of 
God, for we feel it and cannot help sending up notes of praise 
for the joy we have experienced, because of his great love. 
The love of God made known through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and continually rehearsed to us as it is, through his written 
book, and through every page of nature's great revelation, — 
this wonderful love certainly ought to compel every one of us 
to yield to His beseeching, to open the door and let Him into 
our hearts. Why do we not ? Why not listen to the still, 
small voice, speaking in such gentle phrase, instead of wait- 
ing for the sterner, more startling call coming through some 
great calamity, or through the cold, ghastly lips of the death- 
angel. But if you do not heed His kind approaches, do not 
think Him harsh when He deems it necessary to arouse 
your spiritual faculties by the shock of trouble. 

II. And, now, next, how do we open the door, when we 
hear His voice ? How can we admit or refuse to admit Him 
whose presence fills heaven and earth and who has power to 
enter every secret place ? Is it not strange that our will can 
shut Him out, or admit Him into closest companionship ? 
Yet so it is. So our Saviour represents and so our experience 
testifies. There is not one here, who has come into fellow- 
ship with Christ, but knows that it was his own will, and that 
alone which kept Christ from him during the years when he 
was without God and without hope in the world. Every one 
knows, who now enjoys the intimate communion and the 
blessed saving power of Jesus, that it is his own yielding, 
his own obedience, that thus brings the divine sway into his 
soul. 

It may be but a slight act that denotes the change of inch- 



ii 9 

nation and opens the door for the indwelling of Christ; but 
small as it may be, it is a very decisive act, changing the 
whole tenor of one's life here, and the entire fate for eternity. 
The specific act may be a different one for each individual 
soul, but the inward spiritual movement is the same for every 
one — a complete revolution from the fixed feeling, / will not, 
to the full determination, / will. The hinges of the door so 
long shut against Christ may be very rusty, and there may 
be much creaking and groaning at first as it slowly opens, 
but the oil of divine grace shall at length make it turn with 
ease and in silence, as we gladly admit Him from whom, for 
so long, we have turned away. The act through which we 
become Christians, and He becomes ours, may be merely the 
silent assent of the will after a long struggle, but will more 
likely be some outward expression which we have been un- 
willing to make. Sometimes it is the cheerful doing of one 
duty, or a few neglected duties, which will open the door. 
In one of the cases I have mentioned, what the father of the 
little girl needed was to pray. As soon as he bowed in 
prayer he received Christ, and ever after his Lord dwelt with 
him. He was an earnest Christian. The rich young noble- 
man came to Jesus asking what he must do, and Christ told 
him there was one thing — he must give up his riches, for 
while his heart was set on them he could never open his soul 
to heavenly influences. Zaccheus received the Lord in just 
the same way that Jesus indicated to the ruler — he gladly con- 
sented to use his property for those whom he had wronged, and 
for the poor, if Christ would come in and dine with him. I 
think that just this is what a great many now-a-days need to 
do. They will never open the door to the Lord of Glory 
until their affections are detached from their money, their 
manufacturing, their stores, and their business. When these 
things fill up the whole of man's soul, of course there is no 
room for Jesus. Andrew, as soon as he heard that a Saviour 
was come into the world, gave his heart to Him, and ran 
immediately to tell Peter. Paul, on the other hand, long 
withstood Hirr^, fought against Him, persecuted His follow- 
ers ; but as soon as he was convinced of his dreadful mistake, 



120 

without delay he gave himself entirely to his Lord, and never 
ceased to lament that he had so long closed his eyes and 
heart to the divine testimony. 

Luther struggled long and bitterly to free himself from 
his sense of sin and to find peace and pardon. Finally, one 
word let the light into his heart, faith. "The just shall live 
by faith," came like a flash of lightning into his soul, and 
he opened the door at once, and he and his Lord henceforth 
dwelt together. 

Whether young or old, whether one has kept his Lord a 
long time waiting and knocking, or has but just begun to 
apprehend that Christ came to save him, there is one thing 
requisite, viz., to say, I will ; thai is to open the door. 

Some here may have no awakening sense of God's mercy 
and love, of their own need of God's grace, and consequently 
no beginning of desire to live a life with God and partake of 
His salvation. To those we can only say, notwithstanding 
your unconcern, notwithstanding your treatment of this 
loving, patient Savior, still He waits for you, still He seeks 
access to your heart. He only wishes to do you good, to add 
to your happiness, to draw you home now. Will you always 
refuse ? 

But some, no doubt, there are here, as in almost every such 
assembly, who are fully aware that their relations to God are 
not what they ought to be ; that besides the many sins of 
their life they have treated Him who died for them as they 
would be ashamed to treat any man who had sought to 
befriend them, and yet, notwithstanding this consciousness, 
they are not willing to treat him any better yet. There are 
a great many, I think, of this class who are at heart con- 
vinced that they ought to lead a Christian life, that 
they ought to avow themselves Christ's disciples, and 
yet will not perform the one decisive act that will show 
that they have yielded. Some need simply to say, "Well, I 
have been leading the wrong sort of a life. I will leave it, 
and will give my purposes and determinations to Christ 
henceforth." Some have only to confess heartily, " I have 
been depending upon my own goodness, saying that Christ 



121 

and His death was of no use to me, but now I feel and will 
confess that my goodness is pretty poor stuff. I do need 
Christ and His salvation ; I cannot be fit for heaven without 
His help and grace ; I will humbly depend upon Him hence- 
forth." 

Some have made such purposes, that all they need is, by 
some courageous stand, by some firm determination to carry 
their will, and with it their whole being, over to the Lord's 
side. The beginning of family prayer, the bowing before 
God in secret prayer, begging pardon and resigning all to 
Him, the standing up before men and confessing Christ, the 
giving up some habit, the breaking some tie that binds to the 
world, the casting out some one demon of selfishness, of 
revenge, of spite, of greed — any one of these things may be 
the opening of the door to the entrance of the King. Each 
of these may be a small thing in our estimation, but small or 
great, in either case it equally binds the will against yielding 
to Christ's invitation and appeals. Christ asks for an open 
door into our innermost being, and the door must fly open 
by our free will. He will not, He cannot, force an entrance. 
If we are not willing disciples of the Lord we are not disci- 
ples at all. 

To become a Christian, an heir of eternal glory, then, is 
but to open the door and let Christ in. And the determina- 
tion to do that may be as suddenly and as quickly made as 
the opening of that door. There is no one here but may 
become a whole-hearted Christian before he passes through 
the door. A young lady came near drowning. And as 
drowning persons often do, she saw her whole life pass before 
her, and in the few seconds before she lost consciousness, 
she saw and felt how grievously she had treated Christ ; how 
great her sins were and how much she needed Christ's sal- 
vation. She resolved to give herself to him. She was saved 
from the water and saved from her sins. Previous to her 
peril she had been a gay and giddy young woman, not seem- 
ing to care for anything but the baser enjoyments of the 
world ; ever after she bore every evidence of being a devout, 
working, happy Christian. She turned her soul to Christ 
16 



122 

during the few seconds when she was conscious in the 
water. 

III. Our text gives the blessed results of the reception of 
Jesus. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will 
come in to him and sup with him and he with me. This means 
most intimate and affectionate communion. Eating with a 
person in eastern countries means a great deal more than it 
does here. It binds men together in bonds of lasting friend- 
ship. We read in our old Greek books that if a man had 
been the guest of another, it created a relation like that of a 
brother. One was bound by every law of honor to defend 
his guest, even to the death. Dr. Hamlin, in his book 
"Among the Turks," tells of eating with an official, who 
with his own fingers took a piece of meat and handed it to 
him. " Do you know what I have done ?" said the pasha. 
" Performed an act of hospitality," said Dr. Hamlin. "Much 
more than that," said the other, " I have placed myself under 
the most sacred obligation to defend you, or to help you in 
any way as long as I live." From this idea of the sacredness 
of a meal eaten together comes, in part, the deep and holy 
significance of Christian communion in the Lord's Supper. 

This eastern symbolism explains the expression of our 
text : " I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with 
me." It not only implies that if we will admit our Redeemer 
as our guest, we shall receive a most dear friend for life, but 
also that, He being our guest, we come under obligation to 
"defend Him, to stand up for Him, always and everywhere. 
Let us remember this part, fellow Christians ; Jesus is our 
guest, and our friend ; grievous and very dishonorable will it 
be if we fail Him, if we betray Him to the world, turn our 
backs on Him, or break our connection with Him. 

There is also implied in these words of Christ the great 
enjoyment we may have in His company, the great delight 
which feasting with Him will bring. A friend that will 
never fail us, joys that will surpass all else on earth, an 
entrance at length into His home on high, to be his guest 
forever ; this is the reward offered if we will open the door 
and let Him in. But let us be frank. I think that there 



123 

are some professing Christians who would say that 
they had not experienced all that this text promises. 
I fear that there are some who practically contradict this 
word of Jesus. They appear to be so eager to get their 
enjoyment out of something else. Perhaps they have not 
opened wide the door, they do not want to receive Christ 
entirely, and think if they only leave the door ajar, something 
of Christ's love and blessedness may come in, if not all. 
But they ought to know that Christ cannot compromise with 
the world or the devil, however they may try to do so. We 
cannot have any of the blessedness of religion unless we 
admit Christ entirely and with our whole heart. 

An earthly friend even would feel dishonored and insulted, 
if after having invited him to dine with us, we let him come 
no farther than the hall and viewed him with suspicion and 
distrust. If we profess to be on such intimate terms with 
Christ as to have invited Him to stay with us, let us, dear 
friends, treat Him as an honored and beloved guest, and not 
insult Him in our own house. But multitudes have given 
Him their whole-hearted welcome, and have found the com- 
munion most delightful and the blessings of His presence 
passing all expectations. To feel that one is pardoned, that 
the burden is gone, that fear of the future now is gone, that 
one from being wrong, has at length got right, that he has 
a never failing friend, a strong helper, an ever ready comfort- 
er, that one's life is now bound up with that of the eternal 
one, that he is a child of God, heir to all glory and to all the 
riches of the kingdom of God — is not all this (and there is 
still more, as the Christian knows), is not all this sufficient 
happiness to authorize us to say that there is nothing like it, 
a sufficient inducement to throw wide open the door and let 
the king of glory in ? 

The former king of Prussia was a very pious man, and also 
very fond of children. One day he was visiting a school 
and near the close asked a few questions. " To what kingdom 
does this belong?" said he, taking up a piece of chalk. " To 
the mineral kingdom," the class promptly replied. " And to 
what this ?" asked he again, holding up a sliver of wood. 



124 

" To the vegetable kingdom," was the answer. " And to 
what kingdom do I belong ?" he asked. They hesitated — 
they did not want to say that their king belonged to the ani- 
mal kingdom. Pretty soon, however, a bright little girl held 
up her hand. " What is it ?" said the king, "To the king- 
dom of God," she timidly answered. The old king was de- 
lighted. " I hope I belong there," said he. There is no 
greater honor for a king than to be enrolled in the kingdom 
of God, with Jesus as his king and leader. There can be 
nothing more blessed for all of us than to have the close 
companionship and intimate friendship of the Saviour of the 
world. And this He promises us, if we will open the door 
and let Him in. But the honor of being in companionship 
with so noble a friend is not for kings and princes alone. 
There is no one, however humble, however bad and sinful, 
but may have this royal guest, and enjoy this rich feast. 

Our king Jesus is willing to enter anyplace, where he may 
be sincerely invited, and to bring all his rich gifts with Him. 
I have been much touched in reading a story of a poor little 
boy, found by the city missionary, in a garret in London. 
The brutal father had beaten him for refusing any longer to 
be a street thief. Lying near to death's door, battered and 
bruised, he tells the missionary why he could no longer live 
that wicked life. Raising himself upon his elbow he sings 
his little song : 

" Gentle Jesus meek and mild, 
Look upon a little child : 
Pity my simplicity, 
Suffer me to come to thee. 
Fain I would to thee be brought, 
Gracious Lord, forbid it not, 
In the kingdom of thy grace, 
Give a little child a place." 

Such is the dying victory of a little street thief who had 
opened his heart to Christ. How beautifully this confirms 
the promise of Jesus — " if any man hear my voice and open 
the door I will come in to him, and will sup" with him and he 
with me." And as He came to the lonely friendless little 



125 

boy in the garret, and made the desolate place bright with 
trust and peace, so will He come to be the everlasting Friend 
and Comforter of every one of us, if we will receive Him. 
And being with us, He will be our staff and support too as 
we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and will 
enable us to sing songs even in the presence of the death- 
angel. 

My friends, if you have not already let Him in, He is wait- 
ing and knocking now ; why will you deny Him admittance ? 
Why will you day after day turn Him away ? Would you 
treat any earthly guest so inhospitably ? And have you no 
anticipations that if you refuse to have Him dwell with you 
on earth, He will be compelled to say when you stand at the 
door of Heaven, (His door), Depart, I never knew you ? 

But now, as he stands patiently waiting, you can, at once, 
to-night, open the door and let Him in. Will you ? 



VII. 
EASTER THOUGHTS. 

[Preached, Rockville, March 28, 1880 : and his last written Sermon.] 



1 Cor. 15 : 20. — " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first fruits of them that slept." 

The resurrection of our Lord, which is commemorated by 
Christendom to day, is, in one sense, the most essential fact 
of the gospel narrative. " If Christ be not raised your faith 
is vain." 

Christ crucified certainly is the ground of our pardon and 
of our hope of heaven, but that ground is in the faith that 
He was the Son of God : and if He died and rose not again, 
then was His death the death of a man only, and can have 
no atoning efficacy. If the grave held Him, then shall it 
hold us all forever, there is no redemption from its power. 

There is no fact then in all this world's history so inex- 
pressibly important to us as this of the resurrection from the 
dead of Jesus of Nazareth. 

It seems natural that every Christian believer would love 
to trace with absorbing interest every part of that marvelous 
event, and most carefully note the accumulated proofs of its 
truth. And just here, too, would we think that the unbe- 
liever or the half believer would longest pause,, and most 
intensely examine whether all this be so or not, that he might 
have whereon to build. „ 

Our text speaks first of the fact of the resurrection of 
Christ, and then of our own hopes with that. Following 
this, I will ask you again to go over the narrative of the res- 
urrection and review with me the incontestable evidence of 
its truth, and then to reflect a little upon the blessed hope 
that it brings to us to-day. 



127 

Go back, in imagination, if you can, to that Friday even- 
ing, when to the disciples of Jesus all seemed to be over. 
The followers of Jesus had seen their master arrested, tried, 
ignominiously treated, and put to a shameful death ; the death 
of a slave. They were so frightened, that but one of all the 
men who had been with Him through His ministry, remained 
to witness His death ; the women alone were faithful to the 
last. The Apostles feared that they might share his fate. 

As the sun went down and darkness crept over Jerusalem, 
what a heavy load of sorrow must have weighed upon their 
hearts. He whom they loved, whom they had so long ac- 
companied, upon whose words they had hung, at whose 
mighty works they had marveled, their Teacher, their Leader, 
their Friend, had been taken from them. His work was 
ended ; the new kingdom of which He had so often spoken 
was destroyed. They would cherish His memory, they 
would recall His words, but the restoration, the new world 
they had expected, that had all vanished. Their hopes were 
crushed, they were in utter despair. What a gloomy Sab- 
bath the next day must have been to them. Did they dare 
meet together ? Could they bear to talk over the defeat of 
all their Master's plans, of his cruel death, of their own dan- 
ger ? "We trusted it had been He which should have re- 
deemed Israel," said one of them a day or two after — in 
the hopeless tone which showed how completely His death 
had destroyed that trust. 

It is necessary to bear all this in mind while coming to 
examine the fact of the resurrection. Notwithstanding that 
Jesus had once or twice told his disciples that He should rise 
from the dead, yet the thought never once seemed to have 
come into their minds that such a thing could happen. The 
suddenness of the arrest and the quickness with which the 
sentence of execution followed, the awfulness of the mode 
of his death, the fact that all the world was against them, 
combined to daze, confound, paralyze those few men and 
women, hiding themselves from the bitter enemies of their 
Master ; and left them scarcely the power to think. We can 
imagine how it would be with ourselves under such circum- 



128 

stances, when we call to mind, as some here can, the entirely 
unexpected death .of a very near friend — how it stupefied the 
faculties, took away all power to act and covered all things 
with the blackness of our great grief, as if there could never 
be anything more to do, save to sit in sackcloth and mourn. 
So sat the disciples through the Sabbath. They would not 
dare to go to the temple nor take any part in the great Pass- 
over service, and they would have no heart for it. The 
women were watching the slow hours roll away, that as soon 
as the first chance should come they might do the little that 
was left their fond affections to do. For the burial of Jesus 
had been so hurried that no suitable pains could be taken to 
prepare the body ; and this last office these women, who had 
followed Him from Galilee and had ministered unto Him, 
were glad to perform. Renan says "the raptured enthusi- 
asm of woman's affection, the hallucination of woman's love, 
gave back Jesus to his disciples." But we see by the narra- 
tive that the Marys had not entertained the possibility of 
seeing their Lord alive again. They may all have thought 
that in some way, by angelic intervention or some super- 
natural power, His death would have been prevented ; that 
he would have been snatched from His enemies even at the 
last moment and concealed, to be presented again to them ; 
but now He was dead, and what could bring him back again. 
The women could carry their spices and bestow this last 
token of their affection and sorrow. That was all. Let us 
return and stand by the tomb of Jesus. With the words — 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," the Son of 
God had died. The soldiers had made sure that he was 
dead. Their spear thrust into his side had reached His 
heart, and such blood as comes from one who had died of a 
broken heart had flowed from his side. Night was coming 
on, and with the sunset began the Sabbath. The bodies of 
the dead must be buried. What could the frightened, scat- 
tered disciples do ? What could the grief -stricken women 
do to prevent the remains of their dead master from being 
huddled into a common malefactor's grave, or perhaps from 
being buried in the valley of Hinnom. But one comes for- 



129 

ward, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, who had hardly 
dared to acknowledge Christ while He was alive, but in the 
council had not consented to his death, and boldly ventures 
to ask the body of Pilate and to take the responsibility of 
giving it burial. Another man of influence, the Nicodemus 
who came once by night to talk with Jesus, assists Joseph. 
It was two members of the Sanhedrim, the great Jewish 
Council that had condemned Jesus, who take His dead body 
to the tomb. They believed, certainly, that an innocent 
man, a man worthy of all honor, had been put to death. They 
laid him in a costly, rock-hewn tomb, close by where he had 
been crucified, just outside the walls of the city. They 
wrapped the body in a cloth with the spices Nicodemus had 
brought ; they covered the face with a napkin, and reverently 
laid away in the rock the mangled form of the great teacher. 
So he made His grave with the rich in his death. These two 
men of note and weight of character, members of the Sanhe- 
drim, could testify that the Man of Nazareth was dead and 
buried And the women, with, perchance, John, watched to 
know where the burial should be ; marked the spot, then 
went to purchase spices and ointments, and rested through 
the Sabbath in the anguish of buried hopes and despairing 
love. 

The tomb is closed, a great stone is rolled against its door. 
When once the Sabbath day is ended, the members of the 
great council, fearful when they remembered what Jesus had 
said of rising again, asked that a guard might be set at the 
tomb until the three days were over. So there was the 
great stone, the seal upon it, and the guard of soldiers, for 
whom the penalty of sleeping at their post was always death. 
And he who lay within, swathed with many bandages, was 
dead. What, folly to talk of His coming out again. Do we 
expect our dead to rise out of their graves again ? 

As soon as the grey dawn began to appear upon Sunday 
morning, the first day of the week, the faithful women were 
astir to perform their melancholy task. As they hastened 
along, the thought suddenly came to them, forgotten hereto- 
fore in the paralysis of grief, how shall we get access to the 

17 



T30 

tomb ? Who shall roll away the heavy stone. They had 
but a few paces to go, and as they looked they saw forthwith 
that the stone had been removed. Mary Magdalene, in the 
surprise of the moment, thinking probably that the body 
had been taken by his enemies to be ignominiously treated, 
ran as speedily as she could to find Peter. The other 
women hurried on and looked into the tomb. There was no 
body there. What did it mean ? They were affrighted — 
and well they might be. Vain had been the great stone, 
vain the seal placed with so much care, vain the soldiers 
keeping guard through the moonlight night. All the inge- 
nuity of Jewish malice, all the power of the mightiest earthly 
empire, could not keep within that tomb the dead body of 
Him whom they had so easily overcome when alive. The 
time during which He would yield himself to the power of 
death had passed ; He arose from His rocky bed ; Nature 
waited obedient to His command, and as he laid aside the 
death garments she gave a mighty throb of joy. The earth 
shook and the strong rocky door of the tomb opened and the 
great stone rolled away, and the soldier guards fell as if 
dead, and the Son of God walked forth again — henceforth 
conqueror of death, monarch of the tomb. The women saw 
no form in the niche where their loved Lord had lain — but 
instead an angel, clad in white, whose ministries had antici- 
pated their own, in reverently folding and laying aside the 
grave garments. 

The affrighted women fled, to tell the others what the 
angel said, that Jesus had risen, even as He had told them. 
But Mary Magdalene, with eager, impetuous haste, had an- 
ticipated them with her message of alarm. " They have 
taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher and we know not 
where they have laid him." She was not the first to receive 
the tidings that Christ was living — she only as yet had press- 
ing upon her heart this thought: His enemies have taken 
and concealed His body ; in their hate, not suffering it to lie 
in an honorable tomb, they have put it away with the corpses 
of criminals. Startled at her words, Peter and John run to 
the sepulcher. Peter enters and John follows — they see the 



i3i 

grave-clothes, — folded, not taken away. Then Peter and 
John return to their homes wondering much, pondering what 
this meant, for not yet had it come to them that their Lord 
could indeed have risen from the dead. No one yet had 
seen Him alive. But meanwhile Mary Magdalene, following 
Peter and John a short distance, in their excited haste, 
turned back, and came again to the sepulcher, and stood 
there alone, weeping that even his dead body had been so 
cruelly snatched from her, that she could not perform even 
that last office of love, the embalming of it with those spices 
she had brought. The angels had remained to comfort her. 
While she was answering them, hearing a slight sound, she 
turned and beheld in the dusk of early morning a man whom 
she supposed to be the one who had the care of the garden. 
As he asked why she was weeping, she answered, that per- 
haps he had removed the body, and if so would he not tell 
her where it was, that she might take care of it. But it was 
not the gardener. She had no need to ask where the body 
of her Lord was. He Himself was there. One word — 
"Mary" — in the old, well-known, tender tone revealed Him 
to her faithful heart. Instantly she sprang towards him, 
would' have caught Him in her arms, but he forbade it. It 
was not yet the time for so intimate communion, not yet the 
time for such worship. A little time was He to remain to 
show Himself to His disciples, to meet them again in Galilee, 
to give His farewell message, and then should He ascend to 
His Father. 

After the few words interchanged between Jesus and Mary, 
she with all eagerness ran to tell Peter and John and the 
others that she had seen the Lord. Jesus also walks in the 
same direction and meets with the women. They prostrate 
themselves before Him and hasten on with their message. 

So first Mary, and then the rest announced to the won- 
dering, weeping disciples that Jesus was risen. It seemed 
to them like an idle tale. It was not till first Peter, then 
James, and the two walking to Emmaus in the afternoon, and 
afterwards the whole eleven had met Him, talked with Him, 
and eaten with Him that evening, that they began to believe 



132 

in the wonderful fact that He who had been taken from them 
was restored, and that He who had died was alive again ; 
that he was indeed Lord of death and King over all forever. 
One of their number, the skeptical Thomas, would not be- 
lieve until he could put his hands into the very wounds that 
had caused His death. According to Christ's command, the 
disciples hasten away from Jerusalem (where they could only 
meet in secret), to Galilee. There, by the lake around whose 
shores or on whose waters they had so often walked and 
sailed, He met again, first, the chosen apostles, and then, 
perhaps on one of the hills near by, over five hundred of the 
brethren at once. Then, when forty days had past, Jesus 
and the twelve went up to Olivet, and, near where Christ had 
been crucified and buried, He ascended to heaven. 

As we thus follow the narrative step by step, we feel 
nothing else can be true than that Jesus rose from the dead. 
Nothing has so puzzled infidelity and rationalism as to account 
for Christianitv without the resurrection as its fundamental 
fact. It is evident enough that every Christian believed it 
from the beginning. Every preacher of the gospel taught 
it as a truth, the primary truth upon which all else depended. 
Paul went over all the western world preaching it as the 
main source of Christian hope and joy. It could not have 
been invented. The disciples were all confounded, paralyzed 
with grief and astonishment by the sudden and unexpected 
death of their Master. They were no more ready to believe 
that Jesus would rise from the sepulchre, in which they had 
seen him laid, than you or I would be to expect that one of 
our friends whom we had put away in yonder cemetery should 
come to life again and walk among us. Neither could they 
have been deceived. Jesus' enemies made sure that he was 
dead. They set the watch and sealed the stone. When 
Jesus had risen not one would believe it, till he had seen Him. 
As one of them said, " That which was from the beginning, 
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of 
the Word of life, .... that which we have seen and heard 
declare we unto you." And as the doctrine of the resurrec- 



133 

tion was just the one of which both Jew and Gentile was 
most incredulous, so was it that concerning which the apos- 
tles were most tenacious. It was for preaching this that 
they suffered persecution and death ; it was this that called 
down the scorn and bitter contempt of the Athenian philoso- 
phers and Roman politicians. But they always put it in the 
forefront of their gospel, though it was to the Jews a stum- 
bling-block and to the Greeks foolishness. Paul declares, 
" If Christ be not risen, then is our faith vain." All the rest 
amounts to nothing — that is, there is no test that this is a 
heaven-given gospel salvation, unless Christ rose from the 
dead. But " Christ is risen from the dead and become the 
first fruits of them that slept." 

Let us now for a few minutes think of the connection 
of this fact with us. This Easter day proclaims the 
gladdest message that ever came to man. It is bright 
with all hope, beautiful with the reflected glory of an 
eternal blessedness. The thousands of millions of earth's 
inhabitants have been marching in continuous lines through 
the narrow door of the tomb. They have entered and disap- 
peared, and no word from them all has ever come back to 
unfold the dark mysteries there hidden. The grave was the 
sad receptacle of friendship and love, of hope and joy. 
Around it were gathered only the dark-robed angels of sorrow, 
anguish, and despair. Friends did stand around the graves 
of loved ones, with this heavy feeling upon their hearts : ours 
is an affliction that only time can heal ; nevermore can we 
meet — nevermore ! Heavy as the earth lay upon the coffin, 
so did despair weigh upon the hearts of men when death 
came. Grim monarch, indeed ! King of terrors, most truly 
sweeping into his kingdom of darkness the fairest and 
sweetest, the noblest and best, the mightiest and most 
renowned; leading them into his silent realms, and holding 
them with unconquerable power. But that Easter morning 
came and the earth shook and the angels descended and the 
Son of Man came forth from the rocky prison-house, where 
death and Satan had united their might to hold Him fast. 
He overcame them both, when, ascending from Hades, He 



134 

took that wounded, mutilated, lifeless body and brought it 
forth from the gates of death into the bright light again. 
What a victory was there ! Conqueror of that dread monarch 
who had hitherto conquered all and held them in trembling 
bondage. Well could the apostle exclaim, " Death is 
swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting ? 
Oh, grave, where is thy victory?" And well might the 
Psalmist, looking forward to this victorious contest, and 
beholding in prophetic vision the Son of God thus coming 
forth and ascending on high with the fruits of His triumph, 
sing in exultant strains, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King 
of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory ? The 
Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle." 

Death and the devil put forth their mightiest efforts, they 
strove to enter into the very citadel of life and holiness, and 
were cast out — overcome, forever overcome. And the victory 
was for us — for all mankind who will put themselves on the 
side of the conqueror. He has " become the first fruits of 
them that slept." We look at the graves of our beloved 
dead, and weep, as Mary and the disciples wept that first 
Easter morn. We turn and gaze a moment at the empty 
sepulchre, and rejoice with blessed hope, for that means 
that these graves shall be empty too. They cannot hold 
our dead ; they cannot hold us. We are no longer clods 
of the valley, but immortal spirits looking forward to eternal 
life. We may come then to the vacant sepulcher and sing 
for joy. Death is abolished, let us rejoice and be glad. If 
Christ live then shall we live with Him. 

In those vast burial places outside the city of Rome — the 
catacombs — there are sometimes heathen tombs right along- 
side those of the Christians. The difference in the emblems 
and inscriptions is wonderfully suggestive of the new, glad 
hope that had come to the world through the resurrection of 
Christ. On Pagan tombs these words often occur : " I was 
not and became ; I was, and am no more. This much is true, 
whoever speaks otherwise does not speak the truth, for I 
shall not be." Or these : " We all whom death has laid low 



135 

are decaying bones and ashes, nothing else." Or, once again, 
" I was nought, and am nought ; thou readest this ; eat, drink, 
and be merry — Come." How different from the suggestive 
symbols of the anchor of hope, the butterfly bursting the 
chrysalis, the hand pointing heavenward, or the simple in- 
scriptions, " He lives," "In Peace," "Asleep in Jesus," 
marked on the Christian burial places. " Asleep in Jesus" — 
how sweetly tender — waiting till He shall call, then ready to 
arise and enter into glory with Him. 

And with this transforming of death into sleep — this open- 
ing up of immortality to the sons of men — the whole aspect 
of this earth and all earthly relations and pursuits is changed. 
Christ risen from the dead becomes to every believer indeed 
the bright and morning star, to guide us on to new duties, 
to new friendships, to new hopes and endeavors. To John 
on Patmos the risen Christ appeared and declared Himself : 
"I am the first and the last." "I am he that liveth and was 
dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, Amen, and have the 
keys of hell and death." And with these keys of the lower 
world and of death he opens for us the gates and we look on 
beyond the darkness of the tomb, and behold the long, bright, 
undimmed light of eternity — the realms of the immortal, the 
glorified saints, loved friends gone on before. And the light 
streams down upon earth ; and the long wail of misery, the 
deep groans of despair, are hushed as one and another look 
up and behold it. 

As these Easter flowers draw their beauty and fragrance 
from all sorts of soil, and from air and water, by the wonder- 
ful chemistry of the life-power within, so does this Easter 
hope of immortality, this sweet power of the risen Christ 
change the bitter and harsh, the sad and sorrowful elements 
of life into the glad and joyful heritage of faith and love and 
holiness. Even this old earth takes on a new face from the 
radiance of the angels at the tomb, assuring us " He is risen : 
he is not here." Without this life what does this earth seem 
to be but a vast charnel-house : what this soil on which we 
tread but the dead dust of untold millions of our fellow-be- 
ings, the grave-yard of buried hopes and loves, of joys and 



136 

delights. But as we tell this Easter story of the Resurrec- 
tion, the earth seems young again, and beautiful, and full of 
the brightest and sweetest promise ; the springing grass, the 
budding trees, the songs of the birds, and the gay colors of 
the flowers, all join in repeating the tale ; death is conquered, 
the tomb is opened ; life, life full and happy awaits us on 
beyond. And the earth herself shall be made over again, 
and shall rejoice in the newness of youth. For "the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," 
but it shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the chil- 
dren of God. The light of the resurrection morn gives a 
different hue to this earthly life, its work and its duties. 
Says one, " Life here seems merely like the brushing of 
wings along the edges of existence ; before we can know 
anything of its fullness, before we can do more than taste 
its delights, we are cut off and fly away." " Here we have 
no continuing city." 

But Christ risen from the dead shows a life continuous — 
one line, never-ending, stretching on and on, out into the 
brightness, into the joyousness, into the perfection of exist- 
ence. How vain seems our work, our plans, our schemes, 
with the grave for their bound and the earth for their sole 
sphere. The darkness cometh when no man can work ; how 
that thought " presses down upon us ; the night of death," 
and we know not how soon. And that will end all. Of what 
importance are your projects of wealth, your merchandising, 
your manufacturing, of what avail to you will be the accu- 
mulation of stocks and bonds, of houses and lands, when the 
swift-coming darkness shall settle down upon you ?. What 
are greatness, and honor, and glory, in the land of shades ? 
How little, indeed, is there that we can do, if we measure 
plans and effects by the few, short, fleeting years that we 
may spend here, and if there be no hereafter. But when 
eternity opens upon us, what importance is added to every 
deed and need and plan ! If our acts are of the right kind, 
they are laying the foundations for eternal processes ; if our 
plans are after the laws of God, they may go on perfecting 
themselves down all the ages ; we may be sowing the seed 



*37 

whose harvests shall ripen during all the future. And so 
this great Easter fact expands life, ennobles action, and glori- 
fies our position here on earth ? And how it lifts the spirit- 
ual high above all else, making all that we can say or do for 
Christ immeasurably of more consequence than all things 
else. For there is another truth always associated with 
Christ's rising from the dead in the New Testament which 
we must not dissever from it, if we ourselves would attain 
unto the glory and blessedness of the resurrection. If we 
be risen with Christ, then are we dead unto sin, and we have 
set our affections upon things above. It is the resurrection 
from sin and death to which we must attain. 

We must go through the whole process — dying with Him, 
and being buried with Him, if we would rise with Him. 
" Because the Church is the body of Christ," says one, 
" therefore Christ is forever crucified in the self-denying, 
forever buried in the self-forgetting, forever risen in the joy- 
ous freedom of God." So there will be a perpetual Easter 
in that the resurrection is all the time going on in the church. 
And we must have a part in this, the first resurrection, if we 
would also be partakers in the second resurrection. 

And it is precisely in proportion as we seize hold of all 
these associated truths, that the joy of Easter will be most 
refreshing and most powerful in our songs. If only we 
could fully believe and walk in the light of this great truth, 
how would the devices of sin all fly away before its light, 
and the angels of God come to dwell with us ! How would 
duty become joyous, and obedience to Christ the chief motive 
of our lives, and heavenly love and devotion set all the 
courses of our activities and make of our lives a triumphal 
progress of good deeds toward the heavenly kingdom. 

And now let this thought, in closing, fix itself in our 
minds as our Easter memory. Because Christ rose from the 
dead and became the first-fruits of them that slept ; first of 
the thousands of millions that shall come home to glory — 
therefore we are born to endure, when sun, moon, and stars 
shall have passed away. A great preacher has said, " Behold 
we stand alone in creation ; earth, sea, and sky can show noth- 
iS 



138 

ing so awful as we are. The rooted hills shall flee before the 
fiery glance of the Almighty gaze ; the mountains shall be- 
come dust, the ocean a vapor, the very stars of heaven shall 
fade and fall as the fig-tree casts her untimely fruit ; yea, 
heaven and earth shall pass away, but the humblest, poorest, 
lowliest among us is born for undying life." 

If we could look forward millions of years after all this 
visible universe has dissolved like a dream, and other crea- 
tions have taken its place, there would have come no cessation 
to our activities, no close to our joys. All would still be fresh 
and young and beautiful to us if we, indeed, had risen with 
Christ and entered upon the life in Him. 

Should we not live then as worthy of such a destiny. 
Citizens of an everlasting empire, should we not strive to act 
as becoming those so chosen ? Heirs of an immortal crown, 
should not our wishes, our aspirations, all our motives be de- 
termined by the glory of the royal heritage ? Let us look 
beyond and over the base, the trifling, and act, speak, and 
think as those who see beyond the vale into the bright and 
blessed realms where Jesus, our great forerunner, has already 
entered ! 



